Liz White and Saskia Reeves are on fine form in Manchester-based drama From There To Here
“Marks and Spencer has managed to recover. You haven’t”
Starting off on the day of the 1996 Manchester bombing, I thought I had a clear idea of what From There To Here was about but Peter Bowker’s drama soon reveals its far grander plans. For though, Manchester is the setting, the focus is actually the Cotton family and the scope is the next four years.
Brothers Daniel and Robbo are caught up in the blast along with their father but though escaping largely unscathed, tiny spiderline cracks appear, the consequences of which we see unravel over the coming months and years even as the city itself is renovated and reinvigorated through its regeneration programme.
Philip Glenister’s married Dan has a mid-life crisis inspired by his meet-cute with Joanne (the glorious Liz White) in the rubble of the pub they were both in. Steven Mackintosh’s club-owner Robbo looks to reset his drug gang debts and Bernard Hill’s patriarch sets about trying to rejuvenate the ailing family firm.
It all plays out entertainingly, only occasionally veering towards the sentimental towards the end. Saskia Reeves is brilliant as Daniel’s wife Clare, oblivious to the extent of her husband’s ongoing deception and there’s good work too from Daniel Rigby and Morven Christie as their widly different kids.
