Rousing choir scenes enhance the well-curated soundtrack. Teen scenes are pitched midway between Ackley Bridge and Glee. The pick of the next-gen is Gaz’s rebellious daughter Destiny (rising talent Talitha Wing). Middle-aged men being “cancelled” is a recurring theme – again, as before, they are flailing.Ĭaretaker Dave (Mark Addy) and his headteacher wife Jean (Lesley Sharp) work at the same school, attended by all the younger characters. Complaints about sexism force them to change its name. Together the couple run a café called “Big Baps”.
Shy misfit Lomper (Steve Huison) is married to waspish Dennis (scene-stealer Paul Clayton – homosexual relationships are more confidently foregrounded this time around). Here it’s the unlikely but rather sweet combo of dognapping and street art. Ringleader Gaz (the ever-watchable Robert Carlyle, who won a Bafta for the original film) is still hatching hare-brained schemes that inevitably backfire. It speaks volumes that all of the original actors were willing to return. If the optimism of the original, written at the tail end of John Major’s Conservative government, and released during Blair’s Labour one, has gone, that’s the point: this is a sobering reminder of how far we haven’t come. The issues will be all too recognisable, especially to those in neglected communities. The surprise box-office hit was always politically charged, tracing as it did the fallout from the deindustrialisation of Sheffield, and this eight-part sequel wears its politics on its sleeve too. Mental health services are overstretched. The working men’s club that hosted the original film’s infamous 1997 striptease is now boarded up. “Seven Prime Ministers and eight northern regeneration policies later…” “Twenty-six years ago, six unemployed steelworkers came together to help each other out – with surprising results,” reads the opening captions in the first episode (ironically titled “Levelling Up”). The Full Monty (Disney+) sets out its stall straight away.
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