Benefits Street (2014– ) User Reviews

puts 'Shameless' to shame

[chilla-black · 7/10 · 14 February 2014]

Basically, Shameless eat your heart out.

This is a documentary that is basically about real life dossers on the rock and roll. It is an accurate portrayal of Brum life which features examples of people from Brum who can't be arsed, don't think they have a hope or don't want anything apart from dole money, cans of lager, spliffs, roll ups and swearing.

What is jaw-droppingly intriguing about the programme is the raw elements of effing and blinding (even in front of kids), the squalor, the crime, the thuggery and nature of the people who live in this street towards anyone not in the clique. Quite frankly, the scenes depicted on Benefits Street is Brum proper.

7/10

Easy on the eye and brain

[kerry4ever2000 · 4 February 2014]

I enjoy this. It is not in the so called great tradition of social realist drama but many find the Ken Loach pontificating a bit hard to take, as it is relentless, gruesome and grimy.

Benefits Street has its fair share of humour, and some redeeming characters. The black guy who couldn't bring himself to charge poor people the full price could be in a morality tale. My fear isn't how Benefits Street portrayed them, but that they will soon be swallowed up in the Celebrity Big Brother, TOWIE, MIC universe. That is a much more slow and nasty demise.

People also want to be entertained rather than educated for much of the time.

A Sad Reflection of How Modern Television Deals with Social Issues

[l_rawjalaurence · 3/10 · 22 January 2014]

Way back in the mists of time, when public service television actually lived up to its name, BBC series such as PLAY FOR TODAY dealt with social issues in a manner calculated to raise awareness. Ken Loach's CATHY COME HOME (1966) offers a good example: following its first broadcast, the Labor government brought in new legislation to try and deal with an ever-growing level of homeless people. This kind of campaigning drama still exists - within the last week BBC Radio 4 has broadcast a trilogy of plays focusing on people who simply disappear without trace. In televisual terms, however, this kind of drama is passé; instead, we have programs like BENEFITS STREET, a fly-on-the-wall documentary looking at life in a rundown community in Birmingham. The participants have obviously been selected for their entertainment value - druggies, jailbirds and matriarchal figures are the kind of stereotypical figures we would expect to see in a place like this, and the producers do not disappoint us. What I find most regrettable about the series is that it simply reinforces prevailing stereotypes about life on the poverty line. No attempt has been made to analyze the participants' lives in any detail; they are treated like circus-acts, presented for middle-class audiences who can watch them with a kind of horrible fascination, and subsequently write complaining letters to the newspapers about how parasites are living off the Welfare State and need their benefits cut as soon as possible. BENEFITS STREET is not the first example of this kind of 'documentary', nor will it be the last.

Why not Tax Avoidance Street?

[fraserstewart07 · 1/10 · 22 February 2015]

It could be a program based in Downing Street which includes stars such as David Cameron, George Orborne, Nick Clegg and Ian Duncan Smith.

It could be used to promote anti-establishment propaganda. Then people will stop blaming the poor and the foreigners and start blaming the real scroungers of this country instead.

We can learn all about how they like to use our tax money to fund their expensive drug and drink habits. Not to mention their obsession with nuclear weapons that could never actually be used.

Want to know where your tax money really goes? Just tune into Tax Avoidance Street and find out!