Thursday 1 July 2010

Reunited, BBC One

I'm sure that at some stage, more than one writer or producer has jotted 'Cold Feet for the Facebook generation' onto a post-it note. However, when one of those writers is Mike Bullen, the creator of that series, people sit up and take notice.

However, it seems that the BBC is still hedging its bets, because this drama - about a group of 30-somethings who used to share a house in their early 20s - has been produced as a one-off pilot.

Reunited has a cracking ensemble cast, including Zoe Tapper, Jemima Rooper and Ed Byrne. However, my first impression was that the characters were an insufferable load of twats - the sort of hooting, self-congratulatory knobs who ruin pub gardens for the rest of us. To anyone living in London, it would have been no surprise that they'd lived in 'Stokey'.

Still, Mike Bullen knows what he's doing with this sort of thing and the first 20 minutes offer a pacey masterclass in exposition, as their reunion get-together in a bar is intercut with scene-setting glimpses of their domestic lives. 

The only thing that wound me up a bit was the Comedy Northerner (who also turned out to be a Comedy Christian). Maybe I'm being a bit chippy, but it seemed that her gauche 'northernness' was a lazy indicator that she wasn't quite as cool and successful as her professional metropolitan buddies (she worked for BT! In customer service! Just imagine that!!)

Even allowing for a bit of an age gap, I didn't find anyone here I could really relate to, but the relationships - and fault lines - between the characters were set up fairly intriguingly and I think I'd probably give Reunited a go if it went to series. 

If you can get past the very smug middle-class tone, it's definitely worth a look as an example of an ensemble cast being rolled out skilfully and efficiently.


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