In the mid nineties ITV played it safe on Sunday nights, Cilla Black, You've Been Framed, Heartbeat, dull, safe shows aimed at older viewers. Then this Kay Mellor series shot on to the screens, a drama about the sordid reality of the lives of prostitutes in a poor Northern town. Band of Gold totally exploded the myth of Pretty Woman as prostitution being glamorous and working girls being swept off their feet by millionaires, it showed life on the streets and in seedy flats for what it really is, dangerous, nasty and with the threat of violence and death never far away.
Band of Gold was a brave series for Sunday nights and 14 million viewers seemed to agree that it was a gripping, controversial drama. Also it had a bit of the Yorkshire Ripper element in it, with a religious fanatic picking up prostitutes in his car and killing them; in the tragic first episode, a single parent forced onto the game to pay off her debts is murdered on the moors. Also sinister, but not a killer,is the businessman only known as Curly who has a heavy fetish for rubber gloves and stockings. You think he is the killer, but he's not, and tragically he is stabbed to death in the second series by a troubled teenaged prostitute with a drug addiction.
However, it is the excellent cast that make this show what it is. Cathy Tyson is brilliant as the main character, Carole, whose mother and grandmother were prostitutes and she knows no other life. Geraldine James also roughens up for her role as Rose, an embittered older prostitute, Sam Morton takes a fine role as teenage prostitute Tracey and Richard Moore is brilliant as Curly. The first two series are well worth watching, but the third one , Gold, where Carole and Rose become outreach workers for addicts and prostitutes isn't as good. If you want a gripping, shocking and controversial drama DVD, then I do recommend you buy Band of Gold.
