The critically acclaimed and refreshingly authentic series The Heights returns to the ABC for Series 2 in a new Thursday timeslot this week.
The ‘Slice of Life’ drama that explores the relationships, work lives, and everyday challenges faced by the families living in the Arcadia social housing tower and the rapidly gentrifying inner-city neighbourhood that surrounds it — Arcadia Heights.
The community is filled with all the diversity and difference of urban milieu of the inner- city, and though that brings with it the usual tensions that arise from the coexistence of the middle-class, working poor, and upwardly mobile, this is a community that sticks together when the chips are down.
However, as rumours spread that the towers are being sold off to developers, a growing sense of tension grows across the neighbourhood. There’s a perpetual sense of shifting sands with the wealthier inhabitants representing the growing threat to the housing tower’s very existence. As the individual characters are confronted by this, outside forces will intrude on this world and threaten the delicate, often fleeting harmony of the community.
But rather than pit neighbour against neighbour as we explore the individual struggles and triumphs of the characters, The Heights will find connections and commonalities that exist between us all. It is not a bleak story about good versus evil or rich versus poor; it’s a joyful look at the very unifying experience of trying to make one’s way in the world and the family you surround yourself with, whether by bloodline or by circumstance.
As the series unfolds, we’ll see the characters love, hurt, laugh, cry, struggle and then prevail as they pull together to triumph over whatever life throws at them. With a balance of heart, humour and truth, we’ll see relationships strain and falter, friendships are tested, new love blossom, community leaders face grave health threats and as the characters fight to find the courage to be who they really are, we’ll see support come from the most unlikely places.
The Heights is a charming and entertaining relationship drama, told in a family appropriate tone that will make audiences laugh, think, and be emotionally engaged. At the same time, it is unflinching in its approach to complex social issues facing the world today including racism, addiction, mental illness, unemployment, aged parenting, politics, the wealth divide, non-traditional family structures, migration, racial identity, sexuality, gender equality, and privilege. It is a series that celebrates the fabric of modern inner-city Australia, with its varied ethnicities, sexualities, physical abilities and socio-economic backgrounds.
