The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Curse of Clyde Langer

Part One

“Where were you on the day of the storm?”

This story is wonderful. We live in a tabloid culture where it’s becoming more and more fashionable to just dismiss as “scroungers” those people we don’t want to look at: asylum seekers, the homeless, and these days even the disabled. It’s so fantastic that The Sarah Jane Adventures is showing kids how wrong this is, that the homeless are just people like us. And it’s something which could happen to any of us, especially in times like these.

After an interesting flash forward to Clyde we’re quickly introduced to the gang’s new adventure; fish from the skies and a mysterious totem pole. In an apparently casual scene Clyde gives some money to a homeless people, incoherently telling Sky both that she’s a “scrounger” and that it “isn’t her fault”. His incoherence here is shared by most of us, I suspect.

The scenes where everyone turns against Clyde, while carefully blunted so as not to upset children too much, can hardly not be upsetting. Only Sky, an alien, seems unaffected by the curse. Speaking of which… how on Earth does Sarah explain where Sky has come from so she can start school? She has no past, no previous schooling, presumably she can’t read… we probably shouldn’t ask, just as we didn’t with Luke.

The most interesting scenes of Clyde being rejected are with those people we don’t see every week. Clyde’s mother accuses him of keeping secrets which, of course, he is. There’s a genuine subconscious feeling there, I think. And the terrifying and powerful scenes where Clyde’s mates turn on him is so very tinged with class resentment; Clyde is in the sixth form, and has a future. His friends left school at sixteen, and seem to have a bleak future in times like these.

The episode ends unusually. There’s no cliffhanger, just Clyde realising he’s alone and homeless, breaking down and crying. And then the homeless girl from earlier comes and takes his hand…

Part Two

“People don’t look.”

Clyde wakes up to find that he’s still living his nightmare, and has slept under a bridge. The homeless people he’d previously been able to ignore are now all around him, and he depends on his new homeless friend, Ellie, to guide him around this new and traumatic existence. The message is very clear that any of us could fall this far if we’re unlucky enough. Homeless people are people just like us.  “One day it all falls apart, then you’re here.” It’s a powerful message, and great that it’s being given to kids.

Ellie really likes Clyde, and she’s an innocent much like him. There’s a lot of darkness left unspoken in her story of how she came to live on the streets two years ago (“My Dad died. My Mum remarried…”. We see enough of her to realise that she’s nice, and vulnerable. This adds weight to what comes later.

It’s Sky who gets to be the hero, working out how to free Sarah Jane and Rani from the curse. Yes, it’s a little convenient that she should be quite this clever, but I’ll forgive this story a couple of plot shortcuts for its powerful message.

Our second plot shortcut is Clyde being able to easily defeat the mysterious baddie by just saying his name, but the ending packs a punch. It’s becoming obvious that Ellie really, really likes and trusts Clyde (well, the kiss is a bit of a hint…), and it’s shocking when he abandons her, however understandable his reasons. Of course, Clyde searches high and low for her, but she’s gone, and she can’t be traced. This is harsh, and will be upsetting for the children watching. But Phil Ford has made the right decision; to solve the problem of homelessness with an easy sci-fi ending would be a horrible misjudgement.