Background image

terug

critics' choice

critics’ choice

Can You Live Without...?

(C4, 8pm)   barred from making calls to mobile
Usually the answer to thenumbers on it. By disconnecting them
question posed by the title of thisfrom their friends, this threatens, in
occasional TV series is “yes” -one stroke, to rob Amy, Emma,
those guinea pigs who volunteerMichelle and Hayley of their social
to live without, say, television orlife. As they are left out of the usual
make-up cope very well, andmaking of arrangements, they
resolve to become lessbecome isolated, 1970s-style teens,
dependent in future.anxiously waiting for the lone phone
However, when a 10-phoneto ring.
household is asked to turn theRelations between parents and
clock back to the era beforedaughters also deteriorate, because
mass mobile use, the fascinatingboth the night-time taxi service that
result is instant familythe former provide for the girls, and
breakdown.their ability to control what time they
The Coles - parents Steveget home from their nights out,
and Jo, four girls aged betweendepend on calls to check up on them.
12 and 17, and a 14-year-old boyRows, sulks and curfew breaches are
who is so unfazed by thethe result, and two of the girls
experiment that he gets littlebecome so frustrated that they break
screen time - agree to lock theirinto the strongbox and remove a
mobiles in a strongbox for aforbidden mobile.
fortnight, limiting themselves to using
a single old-fashioned phone andJohn Dugdales