In a very remote house deep in the forest, young Danny (Lewis Gribben) lives with his father Steve (Rory Keenan). They stay in watching old films (Casablanca, His Girl Friday, Millions Like Us) on dusty VHS tapes and listening to pre-war crooners and novelty country and western tunes on gramophone. Danny's happy - at least when Steve's there - but Danny's not allowed to leave the house.
Ever. Because of the monsters. The monsters that Steve has told him killed his mother. When Steve goes out he wears full leathers and carries a large gun. Ostensibly it's to defend himself against the monsters but in reality it's used for shooting rabbits whose blood, for reasons unexplained, he then smears over his face.
Lots of things are unexplained about Steve in Channel 4's Somewhere Boy (written by Pete Jackson with directing duties shared between Alex Winckler and Alexandra Brodski. When Steve dies, putting that gun of his to its final use, Danny is taken to live with Steve's sister Sue (Lisa McGrillis) and her family. Perhaps we'll find out what inspired Steve to take such strange decisions.
Sue lives with her partner Paul (Johann Myers), their two young children, and Aaron (Samuel Bottomley), Sue's son from a previous relationship. Aaron is not sure about Danny and Danny is not sure about anything except that his dad was a good man. Danny doesn't understand the outside world. He doesn't understand Weetabix, he doesn't understand pylons, he doesn't understand karaoke, he doesn't understand soapboax racing, and he's never even heard Mr Brightside.
They're a strange list of examples for the show to choose (and Danny should consider himself lucky on the Mr Brightside front) but, more importantly, he doesn't understand basic social norms which causes him to do things that make people feel uneasy - like wandering into their houses uninvited and getting in their beds for a nap. More humorously, he doesn't know what 'fucking' is though when pushed about his masturbatory fantasies by Aaron he admits that he knocks one out over images of Edna Purviance from Charlie Chaplin's 1923 silent film A Woman Of Paris.
Aaron has his own, more typical, young man issues to deal with. He gets sulky with both his mum and Paul, he spends way too much time scrolling on social media - like so many of us, he calls his friends cunts (though, in fairness, some of them are), he watches porn on his phone, he's rubbish at football, and he speaks about girls in a very misogynistic way. While, at the same time, clearly being desperate to get a girlfriend or at least pop his cherry.
Aaron, sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly, will be by Danny's side as he goes out into the world. What happens to him when he sees no monsters? Why do only five people turn up to Steve's funeral? And why is the funniest story any of them tell about the time he once ate two meals in a Hungry Horse pub? Why does even the vicar conducting the service say, of Steve, some of his actions have been 'inexcusable'? And, perhaps most importantly of all, who did kill Danny's mum and what will Danny do when he finds out?
We see Danny haunted by flashbacks of being chased by a monster/man through a forest. Maybe a magic mushroom trip will help! Maybe it will make things worse. Aaron and Danny find some work with a local farmer, Mike (Jamie Michie), and Aaron even starts to fall for his daughter, Daisy (Eleanor Nawal), but will they manage to somehow screw that up? They're awkward enough to. More importantly, what are their real reasons for being on Mike's farm?
All the performances are good but both Gribben and Bottomley are brilliant throughout. Gribben's Danny is at times dead eyed, at times wide eyed with innocent wonder. In his understandable confusion he is driven by an absolute certainty that may prove to be his undoing. Bottomley's Aaron is a masterclass in gauche defensiveness and awkward bravado. A boy who's found himself in a man's body and is not sure what to do about it.
But, despite this, Somewhere Boy can be a frustrating watch. It's eerie in places, quite moving in others (an example being when Danny watches his parents' wedding video), I probably heard the word 'cunt' more often than anywhere outside of my close friendship group, all the old music (the likes of George Formby, Marty Robbins, and Shine On Harvest Moon sounds so great that when newer stuff - Idles, Roxy Music - appear it's almost shocking), and you remain curious to the end but somehow it left me feeling a little bit shortchanged. As if I'd come out of two decades hiding from ghosts only to find they don't exist.
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