Must Watch reviews ‘Lost Boys and Fairies’

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan join 5 Live presenter Nihal Arthanayake to review ‘Lost Boys and Fairies’.

It is a three-part series on BBC One written by Daf James.

It's about two guys in a long-term relationship who decide to adopt a child.

The drama follows all the hoops that they have to jump through for that to happen.

Nihal: “Is it, Hayley, a Must Watch?”

Hayley: “Well, despite that trailer which makes it sound really twee, yes, it is a Must Watch. A story about people trying to adopt a child is not an original one, but I don’t think I have ever watched one that goes so deep into the complicated emotions within each person involved and I don’t just mean the potential parents, but also in the kid.

“It’s a story about when people collide with each other and try to build a family out of all of their various parts, everyone is bringing some other baggage in.

“And in this case one of the husbands had a very religious and abusive childhood and was raised at the time of section 28 and the famous ads during the AIDS crisis.”

Hayley: “Throughout the adoption process with the social worker interviewing them about their lives, these characters are basically being disemboweled in front of us.

"It's incredibly complicated and it’s deeply sad, but it's also very funny which means when it gets very, very dark, you are never that far away from a laugh, even if the joke is also very dark.

“I’ve only seen one episode so far, there are three of them, but I thought this was extraordinary and I can’t wait to finish it.”

Nihal: “Scott, is Lost Boys and Fairies a Must Watch?”

Scott: “It is for me. I think the premise is very interesting, if you are being interviewed for potential adoption, your health gets scrutinised, your finances gets scrutinised, but also your history gets scrutinised and here are two individuals, who have to, a bit like therapy, go back and look after and talk about all of the difficult parts of their entire life, about their family, about their upbringing.

“They are having to essentially talk a lot about their own past and that makes an interesting premise.”

Scott: “It taps into gay shame, it taps into trauma, it taps into parents who might not accept your sexuality, it talks about survival from abuse and from drugs and also having to reset and restart your life without the shadows sort of creeping in too much.

“I think it also taps into just the complexity of adoption. I thought it was interesting to have the social worker interviewing the couple planning to adopt not as a one dimensional character, but actually someone who is there to support them.”

Scott: “It doesn’t scrutinise the adoption process, it basically just brings you through it, makes you acknowledge and understand about the role that everyone plays within it, and it gives me a bit of an insight for a system that I don’t really have that much knowledge about.

“So I found that to be really interesting and the way that Daf was saying in the interview, talking about the complex will of emotions, if you are an individual who is starting to think about adopting somebody else and all of the changes in your life that you have to go through before you even have a kid walking through your front door for the first time.”

Scott: “In terms of flaws, there are some moments I do think are a bit twee. I also wonder with the two leads how much are they individuals and how much are they there to reflect the entire LGBTQ+ experience.

“I think for what this is trying to do and for bringing you into a process that you may know very little about, you may know a lot about, I thought it to be really interesting and that’s why it’s a Must Watch for me.”

‘Lost Boys and Fairies’ is now available on BBC iPlayer.

Must Watch is released as a podcast every Monday evening on BBC Sounds and all other podcast providers.

This week the team also reviewed ‘Eric’ and ‘Queenie’.