Educating Cardiff, Channel 4, TV review: Coral stole the show but couldn’t upstage Mushy’s stammer

Like the rest of the series, Educating Cardiff’s finale didn’t quite live up to its predecessors

Educating Cardiff

Finales of the Educating... series have come to mean one thing: an outpouring of crying face emojis on social media following a touching tale of a teenager making it against the odds. Educating Cardiff kept up the trend with pupils Sean and Coral, whose personal stories were as emotional as ever.

Sean, who has cerebral palsy, wasn't sure if he had it in him to audition for the school show. But this older-than-his-years outsider figure was gently persuaded by the performing arts teachers to don his daily contact lenses to open the performance with “Another Op'nin'” from Kiss Me Kate.

He pulled through in spite of his fears, but it was confident singer Coral who was the star of the show. Her mother had left home when she was two years old, leaving Coral's father to bring her up – but he had struggled, for reasons we weren't told. To the school's great credit, members of staff took Coral to doctor's appointments and cared for her almost as if they were social workers.

Coral dreamed of making the big time in Hollywood, and to no surprise was given a part in the school show. The nation's hearts melted when she forgot her words and walked off stage in tears. The young student's resolve to get back on stage and give her Dad a special rendition once the audience left was a lesson in perseverance for us all. Like the rest of Educating Cardiff, the finale didn't quite live up to its predecessors. Coral and Sean's stories didn't trump Educating Yorkshire's Musharraf overcoming his stammer, but then again, what could?