Urban acrobatics! Teen angst! A potential murder! It’s all happening in this story about two athletes from both sides of the tracks. Sure, it’s a little confused – but it will make you feel alive
We open in Liverpool, with a group of teenagers having vast amounts of fun and being as monumentally careless as only adolescents can at a seaside illegal rave. Half a mile away, a girl is found unresponsive at the shoreline. We cut to one month earlier, to meet the prospective ravers and see if we can spot the one who is due to come a cropper.
Such is the fairly standard premise of new six-part drama The Gathering, written by novelist Helen Walsh in her small-screen debut. It is made slightly fresher by being set partly in the world of elite sports – in this case, gymnastics – and partly in the world of free running (think parkour mixed with acrobatics, a sport that would put the fear of God in your mother if she ever saw you at it). Bridging the two is gymnast Kelly (Eva Morgan), a working-class girl who likes to hang out with her free-running crowd – especially Adam (Sonny Walker) – even though she has been warned by her coach, who is keen that her star pupil doesn’t smash herself to bits jumping across rooftops, that doing so jeopardises her place in the team.
