Following David Tennant’s appearance earlier in the run, Dominic Savage’s series of semi-connected, partially-improvised dramas continues with an appearance by another former Doctor Who star, Billie Piper, as a teacher who falls in love with one of her pupils.

Holly (Piper) has primarily moved to Margate, the setting of all five episodes of True Love, to be near her mother (Jenny Agutter). What she really wants – other than for the abysmally-behaved bear garden of her GCSE English class to be as sedate as the afterschool art club she runs – is to find happiness. Her mum is similarly keen on her daughter settling down, and always brings their conversations around to the subject of ardour.  ‘There is someone,’ Holly is compelled to admit as the two of them stroll along the seafront, ‘but not someone you should get excited about.’

The ‘someone’ in question is David, played by Charlie Creed-Miles – a married man with whom Holly is having an unsatisfying fling consisting of mechanical, melancholy, missionary-position intercourse and very little else. David can only make time for shagging, not the romance, companionship and post-conjugal intimacy that Holly craves, and instead, she finds her heart’s truest, deepest desires in the most unlikely and perilous of places: one of the Year 11 girls at her school.

‘Who really finds love at my age and stays with someone forever?’ sixteen-year-old Karen (Skins alumnus Kaya Scodelario) ponders to a classmate, before going on to do precisely that. (Well, the first part, anyway.) Through a mutual appreciation for art, she and Holly grow close out of school and a meeting at the latter’s house soon turns into an emotional conversation about the teacher’s despondency at her doomed relationship with David.

When Holly breaks down, Karen consoles her as best she can, and then what has been semaphored almost since the first classroom scene comes to pass: they kiss and go to bed. It’s immediately clear they’re very much in love, but what about school? What about ethics? What about Holly’s mum and her questions? What about … everything?

The subject matter is treated pretty seriously and without much titillation (any raincoat-wearers hoping for half an hour of girl-on-girl divan action will thankfully be disappointed) but the morality of the situation is barely touched upon. Instead of addressing Holly’s integrity as a teacher, questioning her for taking advantage of someone much younger and ostensibly more vulnerable, the story instead encourages us to sympathise with her, even be pleased at her finding something resembling happiness. Yet if the affair had involved a male pupil or (particularly) a male teacher, it would have been impossible to ignore the predatory aspect of such a relationship and the dynamics of the drama would have been very different – and potentially more interesting. It’s easy to feel sorry for Holly, but a lot harder to engage with a story that doesn’t really rise much higher than ‘mildly diverting’.

Aside from this tabloid-baiting delve into the ambiguity of teachers’ ethics, there’s a lot wistful silence on the Margate prom – apparently the most romantic/affair-ridden place in the UK, according to this show – and a woolly, happy-ish ending that leaves the viewer none the wiser as to whether Holly has found what she’s looking for or if she’s just destroyed her professional life on a romantic whim.

Aired at 10.35pm on Tuesday 19th June 2012 on BBC One.

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