Waterloo Road; Ross Kemp: Mafia and Britain

“Comedian Jason Manford is not only presenting his afternoon quiz The Answer Run on BBC1 but has joined the cast of school soap Waterloo Road. Previous principals have included Amanda Burton, Angela Griffin and Neil Pearson, while Georgie Glen, Neil Morrissey, Sarah Hadland and Mark Benton are among the many familiar faces who have featured as teachers. Add to that roster Martin Kemp, Jenna Coleman, Jill Halfpenny and Denise Welch, and the show begins to look like a directory of popular television stars.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“All these shake-ups must be a bid to try and make things feel ‘fresh’. But there’s only so much that can be done and by now it feels like it might be running out of, well, road. Its teacher-student drama feels dull and repetitive, even with this series’s big coup, comedian – and Waterloo Road mega-fan – Jason Manford joining the cast as headteacher Steve Savage. Manford is of course funny but here his role is serious in a way that doesn’t suit him, and his likeable personality is shut down by his character. He doesn’t quite manage to bring new life to the programme in the way I (and surely producers) had hoped.”
Kia Elise-Green, The i

“This is, in many ways, a Kemp documentary that sticks to the familiar blueprint. It carries that faint air of Cunk-iness that it doesn’t ever quite manage to shake. Yet you know what you’re getting from a series like this, and it delivers on what it sets out to do: hard men on hard men, mafia-style.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian