High Hoops, review: a goofy, Jacqueline Wilson-esque children's comedy

Telegraph

17-03-2025

'We are sporty girls,' says the star of High Hoops (CBBC) in a rallying speech.
'We sweat, we pant, sometimes our bits wobble – but what's important is we play.' That's the central message in this goofy, Jacqueline Wilson -esque children's comedy, which, in a world where sporty boys are considered the norm, celebrates the effort, awkwardness and pluck of sporty teenage girls.
Aoife (Darci Hull), a talented basketball player but grade-A klutz, has just moved schools in Halifax and is going through the difficult process of remaking friends and fitting in.
For her, this means jettisoning the less-than-cool basketball team and embracing the mean girls, with their drawn-on eyebrows and sly remarks. Soon, however, the honourable Aoife is sucked into helping the ragtag basketball girls, while doing her best to grasp at some street cred.
The casting director must have punched the air when they found the gawky, gangly Hull to play the string-bean Aoife. Hull manages the copious to-camera narration and numerous pratfalls effortlessly, and you can easily see her Aoife becoming a heroine for awkward tweenage girls everywhere. In an enjoyable twist, Aoife's efforts to fit in come at odds with her older brother Conor (Arthur Kay), an unsporty nerd who becomes the school bully's 'hype man'. In a talented young cast, Isha Kaur Athwal stands out, with excellent comic timing, as Aoife's new teammate, Zara.
It is the older casting, however, that is eye-catching for any parents watching – Peep Show peers Robert Webb and Isy Suttie, and Line of Duty villain Ian 'H' Buckells, aka actor Nigel Boyle. Suttie and Boyle are nicely silly as Aoife's mum and the school's useless PE teacher, respectively.
But it's Webb who is given the scope to flex his comedy muscles as the deadpan, sarcastic, ruthless headteacher, Mr Holt.
Whether Sinead Fagan's series will prove to be a hit with its intended audience remains to be seen (I cannot tell you if 13-year-olds still say 'sick' or 'dope'), but the Beeb have put their full force behind it, commissioning a second series already. Nevertheless, High Hoops is a charming addition to the CBBC drama roster, and one with a quietly serious message about girls' participation in sport.