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Paul Nicholls takes on his debut leading role in William Ivory's bold and surprising modern day tale of one man's search to find true love, set in the vibrant city of Nottingham.
Told through the eyes of hopeless romantic Gary Scant (Paul Nicholls), the six-part serial charts his journey with his earthy working class friends and family as he tries to comprehend the mysteries of the human heart.
The supporting cast includes: Ben Miles, Roy Barraclough, Kaye Wragg, Chris Gascoyne, Karl Collins and newcomer Liz White.
Close to his mates and family, happy with his long-term girlfriend Mel (Wragg), life seems almost perfect for painter and decorator Gary Scant.
But when a night out with the lads from football takes an unexpected turn, Gary's comfortable notions about true love are shattered.
This sets him on a quest to find his soul mate - and a love that demands no compromise.
Joining him on this journey is his close friend Paula (White), the only person who truly understands him.
Laura Mackie, BBC Head of Drama Serials, says: "A Thing Called Love is a poignant signature drama from the heart by William Ivory, similar in tone to Common As Muck which acknowledges that, although we can't all win the lottery or cure cancer, we can lift our lives out of the everyday routine through the magic of true love and great sex.
"It's a joyous, heart-warming ensemble drama which looks at the extraordinary side of the most fundamental aspects of human life."
Filming is currently underway in Nottingham. The drama is due for transmission later this year alongside Pete Bowker's darkly comic musical Blackpool and Sandy Welch's adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's passionate love story, North and South.
Chocolate-box notion of love.
A Thing Called Love is shaping up to be a curiosity. After one viewing I cannot decide whether it is clever, tedious or some strange conflation of the two. Its pedigree is fine – William Ivory, its author, also wrote the screenplay for Common as Muck – and it seems serious in its efforts to investigate the sexual attitudes of the modern male.
Yet just when you think you have found the show's range – frank, gritty, working-class drama set in Nottingham – it turns into a Mills & Boon romance. Paul Nicholls, as Gary, might once have starred in EastEnders, but we needn't hold that against him. Here he is likeable, slightly goofy and engaging. The trouble lies with the words Ivory has put into his mouth.
A Thing Called Love might have been better titled A Thing Called Luv, for the chocolate box, hearts and flowers version is what we are dealing with. Not just any old luv, either, but True Luv, the sort that binds soulmates together for eternity, even in Nottingham, the sort that allows a bloke to know, instantly and on sight, that he has found "The One".
This is Gary's fixation, and has been since he was 15. His problem is that Mel, his first and only real girlfriend, is not "The One". His mates, meanwhile, happily make that eternally-useful male distinction between luv and sex, helping themselves to the latter wherever they can find it, whether they are just engaged or married with kids.
Gary finds all this deeply troubling, and mopes accordingly. He's a good lad, and wears his heart on his sleeve the way some people wear manacles. Thirty minutes into episode one, however, you were beginning to wonder why anyone put up with him. Traditions of romantic love go back a fair few centuries; Gary acts as though he is the first person ever to be smitten by the notion of being smitten.
Unless there is a satirical point that just made a whooshing noise as it flew over my head, this aspect of the drama also struck me as problematic. Nicholls is a decent actor, but he is no Tom Hanks (not necessarily a handicap, I concede) and this is no Sleepless in Seattle. The movie, nevertheless, wrote the book where romantic obsession is concerned, and it did not require its cast to utter lines extolling "the only One who steals your heart completely", or have them instruct one another that, "where luv's concerned, it's all or nothing".
Poor Mel just wants to get wed, as they say in her part of the world, and is restless about Gary's lack of commitment. He then makes the fairly obvious point that "ah don't luv ya" by having sex with a stranger before telling poor Mel that "it wasn't sex; it were breathing", and startlingly "vivid" to boot. If you enjoy an evening with a pack of Kleenex and a box of Maltesers, this was for you. If not, you probably watched the football.
Related Downloads: Episode 2 'Ironing' scene (AVI)
Related Pages: The Work | The Gallery
External Links: The Official Website | Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
Copyright: © 2000 - 2006, Adrian Skeates
This Page created: 22 August, 2004
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