The Bagley Boys review

Sam Savelli reviews the pilot episode of The Bagley Boys, a First World War drama which has been created and produced by Warwick’s Dr Mike Tildesley.

Trapped in the ‘bubble’ of Warwick campus, there’s been little cause for me to explore much of rural Warwickshire in my three years of university. And so, watching the premiere of The Bagley Boys pilot took me, not only back in time, but also to a side of the county that I hadn’t given much thought. It’s a romanticised idea of village life that makes its way into The Bagley Boys – one of a close-knit community, where everybody’s friends and everybody’s happy. Perhaps that is what makes the tragedy all the more poignant.

There’s talk of war throughout the episode, but we don’t see an awful lot of it. Not yet. Instead, we see a village that is so far removed from conflict and bloodshed, that it’s hard to imagine any of the men having much of an idea as to what war entails. It’s harder still to imagine them in the thick of it.

In just an hour of television, it manages to tell its stories with confidence, coming across undaunted by this scope

Having spoken at length with Mike Tildesley (the project’s creator and star, but only when he’s off duty from his day job as a Warwick professor), I went into the pilot with a reasonable idea of what it was going to be about. The show, I was told, would tell the story of ten men and their families during the First World War, as the men signed up together in a Pal’s Battalion. What I didn’t quite appreciate before watching it, even on hearing this synopsis, was the scope that this is actually attempting to cover. With such a large cast of characters and so many stories to tell, The Bagley Boys is certainly ambitious.

And, incredibly, in just an hour of television, it manages to tell its stories with confidence, coming across undaunted by this scope. The drama moves from one character to the next and makes sure all of those ten men are accounted for, as well as plenty more characters besides. In fact, the show’s greatest strength would probably have to be its characters. They are nearly all compelling in their own way, showcasing such a variety of contexts in which they leave behind the village of Bagley-on-the-Wold.

For example, there’s ‘Danny boy’ who’s too young to sign up, but wants to feel like one of the men; there’s Alfie who wants to go, but his wife disapproves; and there’s the Reverend who wants to do his bit and so joins the others later on, Bible in hand. Some of the men don’t even get a lot of screen-time, but you still get a feel for their characters, such as Ernest who is only really the focus of one scene, but a powerful scene nonetheless in which he shares his fears about being a coward.

The Bagley Boys doesn’t shy away from its ambitious premise and as a result gives us characters who are almost immediately engaging

There were also things I felt could have improved the episode. The main thing was that when the men went off to training, I felt we were really missing something by only hearing but never seeing the drills they’re made to do. Since most of the scenes we saw were in their ‘free time’ in between drills, I didn’t feel that we got a sufficient picture of the effect of suddenly plunging these ‘ordinary men’ into the military. Of course, I appreciate that such scenes may have been difficult to do with the time and budgetary constraints that were on the episode, particularly the training scenes, but I think it would have helped to create that contrast with their lives in the village.

But this is a small point in what was otherwise a well put-together drama. The desire to tell these stories is achieved well by a cast and crew who are clearly passionate about the project. The Bagley Boys doesn’t shy away from its ambitious premise and as a result gives us characters who are almost immediately engaging. It reminded me a little of ITV’s wartime drama from a few years ago, Home Fires. That show, however, was set in the Second World War and focussed only on life back home. The Bagley Boys, by contrast, promises to actually take us to the front line. I only hope that we will eventually get to see how that pans out.