Supacell, Netflix review: clever superhero adventure combines Top Boy and Misfits

Nadine Mills in Supacell - PA

In the streaming era of over-production, it has become difficult to encounter a drama that feels wholly original. Supacell (Netflix) is not that drama. With supernatural goings-on in the ’hood, enfolding drug turf-wars and time travel, it’s a rattling grab-bag of other scripts’ DNA, from Misfits to Attack the Block to Top Boy to The Lazarus Project. There’s even a conscious nod to Avengers Assemble.

The idea is that five black Londoners randomly discover a superpower that makes their irises flare gold. Street dealer Rodney (Calvin Demba) can run as fast as Dash in The Incredibles. Sabrina, a nurse (Nadine Mills), moves objects telekinetically. Teenage musician Tazer (Josh Tedeku) can vanish and reappear. Ex-con Andre (Eric Kofi-Abrefa) is just really strong. It’s the usual shopping list.

As for delivery driver Michael (former Doctor Who companion Tosin Cole), he can suspend time. In a swift trip to the future he learns of an urgent need to rewrite the present. He can only do it by recruiting the others to help, but first he must find them.

The superpower stuff is entertaining enough, and well captured in solid video-game SFX. But this is also a conscientious portrait of bustling black London – its roots, its subcultures, its sociopolitics. “This ain’t a f---ing comic book,” Rodney tells a friend who recommends using his superpower for good. “This is real life.”

The title plays on the prevalence of sickle cell disease among people of African or Afro-Caribbean origin – though that’s not the only reason half the cast fetch up in hospital. The script is by Rapman, whose 2019 film Blue Story depicted the pressures of gang life on young men. Inevitably that absorbs much of his focus again.

Not being the target audience, I admit to using the subtitle function for some of the dialogue. I also would have welcomed more than one token woman in the quintet. The script makes a stab at sticking up for its female characters – Michael’s social worker girlfriend Dionne (The Responder’s Adelayo Adedayo) is given things to do – but this is a phallocentric story.

The sixth-episode finale, reached at a sprint, proves no more than a staging post for grander confrontations, and perhaps a bigger role for Eddie Marsan, who figures briefly as a sinister authority figure. This compact first season does enough to merit a second. But if Supacell has a superpower, it is that it knows how to borrow well.

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