Have you got 'Cold Feet'? (Cold Feet)

Member Name: Tara

Product:	Cold Feet
Date:	21/11/00 (702 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: True to life but enough excitment to hold your interest.

Disadvantages: Very similar to many other shows.

This comedy/drama is about the closest we’re ever going to get to a British ‘Friends’. Coincidently, Helen Baxendale, who plays Rachel, also played Ross’s girlfriend, Emily in the American sitcom.

The programme is set in Manchester and is centred around 3 thirty-something couples.

Like ‘Friends’, the characters are based very loosely on stereotypes, which have developed as the series go on, into unique, identifiable characters which the TV audience as come to love like their own friends and families.

It is at the moment starting it’s third series of eight episodes. The last series ended with a special double bill set on the eve of the new Millennium, in which Adam (Irish sweetheart James Nesbitt) and Rachel, the equivalent of Ross and Rachel in ‘Friends’, the typical on-off couple, getting back together, Pete (the loveable teddy-bear John Thompson) and Jenny (the wonderful Fay Ripley) breaking up over Jenny’s crush on Adam and Karen (Hermonie Norris) telling her pompous husband David (Robert Bathurst) the news that she is expecting their second child.

The new series started last Sunday, picking it up nine months after the Millennium edition, with Karen bringing home twin girls, raising some jealous tendencies in their 4-year-old son, Josh (let’s not mention the incident with the iron!).

In three episodes ‘Cold Feet’ has covered quite a lot of ground. Karen’s alcoholic Mother (Mel Martin) has had a fling with one of David’s important business clients, Jenny has a new boyfriend, a dotcom millionaire, Pete is dating Romania, Karen and David’s feisty Spanish nanny, David is fantasising about another woman and Rachel and Adam are trying for a baby through a £4000 operation with a 1 in 5 chance of success.

Most of the story lines are like this, things that happen quite frequently in every day life. One of main reasons &#
8216;Cold Feet’ is so successful is that it is always true to life, but interesting enough to keep your attention, like a good soap should.

But to be honest with you all, ‘Cold Feet’ is very similar to many other recent television programmes which have tried unsuccessfully to copy ‘Friends’, and it’s certainly not a very ambitious project. But in many ways it is actually better than it’s American predecessor.

It not only has realistic, amusing characters, but the script is also very well written and provokes plenty of laughs. The six main characters are wonderfully played and it has a variety of great music from very recent hits to old classics.

And best of all, it maintains that all-important balance between humour and drama – perfect for Sunday night viewing.

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