Without wishing to ruin things for viewers of a certain disposition, I have news regarding Disney’s eight-part TV update of The Full Monty.
Everyone leaves their hat on. In fact, they leave everything on. There is no Monty, full or otherwise.
So if you want to ogle a bunch of sixty-something blokes prancing around in ill-fitting thongs you will have to pop down to your nearest beach this summer.
Or just wait for the second series of Craig and Bruno’s Great British Road Trips.
But why, I hear you sigh, would anyone revisit The Full Monty if nobody gets their kit off?
It’s a good question. And it receives its answer with an on-screen caption at the very start, which fills us in on what has happened since Gaz & Dave and the gang delighted movie audiences back in 1997.
“Seven prime ministers and eight northern regeneration policies later…” The TV series has flipped the movie.
Where the movie was a warm-hearted, uplifting caper with a side order of politics, the TV series ladles on the politics and despair from the very beginning, pausing only to offer the occasional comedy moments.
Imagine if Jimmy McGovern had written one of his gritty TV dramas, and then been told to throw in a little Last Of The Summer Wine to “lighten the mood”.
While that doesn’t necessarily make it the dull monty, I wouldn’t recommend watching the whole series in one sitting. No one needs
an eight hour telly marathon reminding them how bleak life is for so many people in Britain these days.
And The Full Monty does get very bleak in parts, particularly towards the end.
No spoilers from me, but the deeply disturbing turn that one storyline takes will definitely split opinion.
My first response was that it would never happen in real life, but the more I thought about it the more plausible it seemed.
It was certainly a lot more believable than the missing Britain’s Got Talent winner that was making headline news everywhere in episode one.
I mean, as if anyone cares about Britain’s Got Talent winners these days.