BUSTED BRITAIN (THE FULL MONTY, SEASON ONE)

Mention 'The Full Monty' and you know what most people think.

They recall Peter Cattaneo's 1997 hit movie about six unemployed Sheffield men stripping down to more than just their underpants in public.

Cattaneo's film hit a commercial and critical sweet spot between acerbic social commentary and perfectly judged slapstick.

As the UK headed out of 18 years of Conservative Party rule under Margaret Thatcher and John Major and envisaged a new dawn under Tony Blair's New Labour, the movie's social conscience struck a chord with audiences while delivering loads of laughs.

As British audiences flocked to see Cattaneo's Oscar nominated film, there was a sense their country was changing.

Voters appeared tired of Tory rule and were desperate to invest in a new hopeful vision for the future.

The film mostly scored, though, by being funny.

Twenty six years later, FX, Hulu and Disney+ have revived the 'Full Monty' with a TV version that has all the main characters with some new faces too.

The emphasis isn't just on comedy and the political message is pretty similar.

The UK is currently in its 13th year of another incarnation of Tory rule.

During that time, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss have all come and gone as Prime Ministers.

Rishi Sunak is facing an uphill battle to keep 10 Downing Street in Conservative hands and away from Keir Starmer's Labour Party.

However Britain is also feeling the after effects of Brexit, a global pandemic, climate change, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, increased digitisation in the employment market and worldwide economic turbulence.

The political discourse of 2023, though, feels harsher than 1997's.

Social media has ramped up divisions.

There's an aggression in political discourse now that wasn't prominent then.

Traditional media has amplified divisions, with some newspapers and echo chamber TV channels and radio stations stoking tensions.

Nearly every political debate between the right and left these days, between different shades of conservatism or liberalism feels hysterical and is conducted like a war of attrition.

That's not just in the UK but in the US, Australia, Europe and South America.

Is it any wonder everyone feels exhausted?

This febrile political atmosphere poses a big challenge for the new version of 'The Full Monty'.

In a more fragmented political landscape, is it possible for a TV show that wears its political conscience on its sleeve to capture the public imagination in the way its predecessor did?

When it landed on streaming services this summer, the jury was very much divided.

One Guardian critic labelled the series boring and by the numbers and that's from a liberal newspaper whose readers were expected to be its natural constituency.

Variety, however, loved it.

Audiences on social media were also divided, with some accusing it of being too woke and not funny enough and others loving its comedy with a social conscience.

In pre-publicity, Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy and other stars were quick to dampen expectations that at their age they would be repeating the film's famous striptease in the show.

That's a wise move.

After all, with respect to all involved, who'd really want that?

But while the series studiously avoids nudity this time around, its politics are still pretty naked.

And that may be the problem for some viewers.

Written by the original screenwriter Simon Beaufoy and former Chumbawumba singer Alice Nutter, the opening episode begins with a caption that says: "Twenty-six years ago, six unemployed steelworkers came together to help each other out - with surprising results."

And then in a swipe at New Labour, the Conservative and Lib Dem Coalition and recent Conservative Governments, it adds: "Seven Prime Ministers and eight northern regeneration policies later..."

Having set their agenda out, Beaufoy and Nutter over the course of eight episodes shine a light on concerns about how the UK treats its most vulnerable members of society.

Carlyle's big talking man on the make, Gaz is living initially in a mobile home and working as an orderly in a hospital where he gets to see at first hand the impact of the mental health crisis.

Now a grandfather, his son William Snape's Nate is a police officer and his grandson Lewis Whele's Ben is confined to a wheelchair.

We discover Gaz has had a second failed marriage to Tupele Dorgo's Yas.

He now flits in and out of the life of his teenage daughter, Talitha Wing's Destiny "Des" Schofield who, like him, has a nose for trouble and powers of persuasion.

She's also a talented rapper and musician.

Gaz's best mate, Mark Addy's Dave is working as a caretaker in the comprehensive school that his wife, Lesley Sharp's Jean is the principal of.

Their marriage has gone stale and is under strain, with Jean struggling with the demands of running a decaying school on a tight budget while guiding kids in their care like Des and her friends, Natalie Davies' Tabani and Dominic Sharkey's Cal.

Another pupil, Aiden Cook's Dean "Twiglet" Blakefield falls onto Dave's radar after he catches him stealing from the school kitchen.

He discovers the boy is being bullied and when he digs a bit deeper that Twiglet also has a mum on medication.

Jean has become romantically involved with a school colleague, Philip Rhys Chaudhary's Dilip.

Her friendship with Des's music teacher, Sophie Stanton's Hetty Baxter has also become increasingly strained.

Hetty has become a carer for her elderly mum who suffers from dementia.

Paul Barber's Horse is also struggling with the ravages of old age.

Suffering from increasing ill health, he is living on disability benefits.

Inevitably, they are reviewed and he is ridiculously told by a Social Security assessor that he is fit to go back to work when he shuffles about on a cane.

Meanwhile Steve Hulson's pigeon fancier Lomper is no longer in a gay relationship with Hugo Speer's Guy whose ditsy but kind hairdresser fiancé, Emily Bevan's Yvonne is pregnant.

Guy is a successful contractor but has to be chased by Jean to do repair work in her school on the plumbing in the girls toilets.

Lomper is in a relationship with Paul Clayton's brittle tempered Dennis, working alongside him in his corner cafe where the old gang, including Tom Wilkinson's Gerald, like to hang out.

Another addition to the gang is Miles Jupp's mild mannered housing official Darren, who befriends Halima Ilter's Kurdistani refugee Silvan and her teenage son, Darin Nagada's Hasan.

An episode in which Des inadvertently steals a dog from a 'Britain's Got Talent' style show enables Beaufoy and Nutter to take a pop at a tabloid media culture in Britain that would rather obsess about fame than address poverty.

The harsh reality of welfare reform, bigotry towards asylum seekers, the mental health crisis, a crumbling education system, the lowering of expectations for teenagers from working class backgrounds, the reliance in many communities on loan sharks, crumbling marriages and dignity in death are all tackled in the show.

And yet somehow Beaufoy and Nutter manage to make it all work, striking a nice balance between gentle comedy and drama.

They don't get the balance right all of the time but they do most of the time.

An episode built around Horse going to an unemployment office is probably the strongest, with a 'Dog Day Afternoon' siege developing.

Darren's episode about Silvan and Hasan lands its comic and dramatic darts effectively.

Other episodes built around Lomper's get rich quick scheme involving a pigeon and an episode where Dave discovers his marriage is in crisis sag in parts.

A send-off for one major character makes its points, even if it does strain credibility in the end.

Carlyle, Addy and Hulson comfortably step back into their characters' shoes, while making allowances for the passage of time and the onset of middle age.

Jupp, Clayton, Stanton, Ilter and Bevan prove great additions to the cast, as is Wing who lays down a big marker about her star potential.

There are some odd narrative decisions, though.

Speer and especially Wilkinson seem underused, with little to do but make passing remarks when they appear.

Fans of the original will be wondering why Gerald, who was such a major character in the 1997 movie, is restricted to sitting in Dennis' cafe, making the odd sarcastic comment amid the cups of tea and lemon drizzle cake.

Unfortunately Wilkinson's subsequent death at the age of 75 at the tail end of 2023 robs us of a chance to see him in the role again.

Sharp is as strong as ever but you can't help but feel her character Jean has been handed a thankless story arc that doesn't cast her in a particularly good light.

Tara Lynne O'Neill from 'Derry Girls,' Bruce Jones of 'Raining Stones' and 'Coronation Street' fame, Mat Fraser and Jamie Michie all make effective cameos - the latter two as loan sharks.

Joshua Jo amuses as a Korean pigeon enthusiast who befriends Lomper and Dennis.

However if there is one performance that should be really trumpeted it is Paul Barber as Horse who delivers several of the show's most heart rending moments.

A veteran of TV shows like 'I Didn't Know You Cared,' 'Only Fools and Horses' and 'Chancer' and films like 'The 51st State' and 'One Night In Istanbul,' he brings a Ken Loach like poignancy to many of his scenes.

His work is reminiscent of Crissy Rock or Dave Johns in 'Ladybird, Ladybird' and 'I, Daniel Blake' respectively.

It's a performance right up there with some of the best acting you will see on the small screen this year.

With eight episodes jauntily directed by Andrew Chaplin and Catherine Morshead, it's inevitable that with the passage of time and a new format, 'The Full Monty' TV show feels different to the movie.

The gentler tone of the comedy and the sight of ageing characters hanging about a cafe has resulted in comparisons being made to the BBC sitcom 'Last of the Summer Wine'.

That comparison, though, is lazy.

'Last of the Summer Wine' is a very different beast.

It would never have been as political as 'The Full Monty' is.

If anything, the sitcom 'The Full Monty' most resembles is the London comedy 'Only Fools and Horses'.

Gaz is essentially a Yorkshire Del Boy, landing himself and others in trouble as he pursues big dreams.

Like Del Boy, he's always in search of a pot of gold but he struggles to find it.

His heart is in the right place but he has a tendency to cut corners.

Somehow, when he gets himself and his friends into bother, they manage to end up on the right side of the law even when he's breaking it.

Across the eight episodes, Beaufoy and Nutter manage to wring laughs out of an imperfect show.

Not all of them are huge belly laughs but I'd a defy anyone not to bellow at a scene in the unemployment office that is built around a gag about the film's famous striptease.

Like Danny Boyle's 'Trainspotting' sequel 'T2: Trainspotting,' the fact that the original cast are now in their fifties, sixties and seventies means the tone inevitably needs to change.

Under the cloak of much gentler humour, though, lies a savvy TV show with more political bite than you tend to get on terrestrial TV channels like BBC1, ITV and Channel 5.

'The Full Monty' has more to say in one episode about the state of modern Britain than dozens of detective shows and wiseass sitcoms pumped out on terrestrial television.

Fortunately there are enough laughs in 'The Full Monty' to suggest there's mileage for at least another series.

There's also no shortage of social issues to be tackled.

Whether FX, Hulu and Disney+ will have the courage to let Beaufort, Nutter and the cast do just that will say an awful lot about the state of TV today - especially in an increasingly antagonistic political world.

Let's hope they give it a lash because this is a show that works really hard for its laughs and it deserves it.

(Season one of 'The Full Monty' was made available for streaming on Disney+ in the UK and Ireland and on Hulu in the United States on June 14, 2023)

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BUSTED BRITAIN (THE FULL MONTY, SEASON ONE)

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