I'll review this as "The Fully Monty" season one, I'm not particularly convinced that the show will return for a second run, nor especially convinced that I want it too; but if confirmation of cancellation comes through, I'll move this review to the main page for the show, but for now, I'll just talk about this first run of eight episodes.
30 years later and with the country again suffering under a decade of Conservative austerity policies, we reconnect with the characters who stripped off in a Sheffield Working Mens Club. Gaz (Robert Carlyle) is an orderly at a hospital, has a daughter now, from his second failed marriage and is still looking for a way to get rich. Dave (Mark Addy) is the caretaker at a school, where his wife Jean (Lesley Sharp) has risen to headmistress, but their marriage has been struggling since the death of their son.
Whilst I have a number of criticisms of the show (and some praises) one that will prove perhaps the most damaging is that the first episode is comfortably the worst of the run, so many viewers won't get beyond that to the better stuff that follows. It focuses rather a lot on Destiny, played by Taitha Wing, who is Gaz's daughter from that second marriage and though she's great, it does come at the expense of us reconnecting with the original characters, which is rather the point of the show. From there, I think I'd describe the overall tone of the series as scattershot. It doesn't quite do single episode story arcs, but it's not telling one big story either. Each character has their own storyline, though some of them either come entirely out of nowhere or disappear without a resolution. Some of this is because Hugo Speers character was written out due to misconduct allegations, but he appears in the first few episodes, ahead of a hastily cobbled together departure, but it does leave one storyline with no way of working out. Also scattershot is the targeting of almost every conversation point going, from political correctness to chronic underinvestment in services, to asylum seekers, to reality TV. I'm not saying that any of these issues or touchstones have gone away, but it has a way of making the series feel likes it's from 5 to 10 years ago, rather than released this month.
The performances are good though, as you'd expect from a cast of this calibre. It is occasionally reasonably funny and (and I accept that this is a peculiar benefit to me) I'm from Sheffield, so could play "I know where that is" quite often.
I don't think that, given the volume of options available and pressures on your viewing time, I can honestly recommend "The Full Monty" - but if you're interested, and can get through the first episode, there are some rewards to be had later on.
