Not one to watch with the man in your life! (Cutting It)

Member Name: alirigby

Product:	Cutting It
Date:	22/04/02 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Entertaining, Well acted, Good Script

Disadvantages: Not for boys!

'Cutting It' is shown on Tuesdays on BBC One, it stars Amanda Holden and Sarah Parish and is a new drama series essentially about love and hairdressing! It's 60mins long and is on for the next five weeks.
Now you may understand why it took me some time to persuade my fiance to watch it with me! I'm afraid it didn't hold his attention for very long, but I have to say I enjoyed it.
This is another good drama from the BBC: written and produced by Debbie Horsfield (credits include Sex, Chips and Rock 'n' Roll) Cutting It presents believable characters and dialogue and is well directed. If you liked Rescue Me, Cold Feet, Linda Green and other dramas in this genre you should give Cutting It a go.

The Cast:
Allie Henshaw: Sarah Parish, (Peak Practice, Hearts and Bones and Kiss Me Kate).

Mia Bevan: Amanda Holden, (Hearts and Bones,Grimleys and others.

Gavin Ferraday: Jason Merrells (Clocking Off).

Finn Bevan: Ben Daniels (Soldier Soldier)

The cast also includes Angela Griffin, Sian Reeves, Lucy Gaskell.

The Characters:
There are quite a lot of characters in the drama, but it is easy to pick up who they are and their relationships with one another. Allie, Mia, Gavin and Ben are the four central characters and are all played strongly. The script is well written and the characters are believable. The interaction between women is well captured and realistic.
Having only seen the first episode, I have yet to see how they are developed but I think there's great potential for some good emotional wrangling!

The story so far....
Set in Manchester the drama began by showing the thriving salon run by Allie Henshall (Sarah Parish) and her husband, Gavin Ferraday (Jason Merrells), the business is so successful Allie wants to expand and everything seems to be going really well for the couple. Whilst celebrating the salon's 10th anniversary and planning for the
future, Mia Bevan (Amanda Holden) appears on the scene. Mia befriends Allie and her staff (who all think she is only a new client for the salon). Soon Mia has bought the premises opposite Allie's salon (which Allie was originally going to buy), it also turns out that Mia's husband is actually an old flame of Allies (she was his girlfriend at 17 and when she got pregnant he left her).

*** UPDATE ****
Thought I'd give an update since the 2nd episode.
Allie Henshall is losing her regular clients to sneaky Mia and her new, hip salon. They discover that someone has accessed their customer database and targeted for their business, there are growing suspicisions of a mole.
Allie and Mia fight it out for the business of a celebrity couple;
Finn tells Allie that he's secured her the celebrity deal (which she thought she had already until Mia tried to charm her way into it), Allie throws this back at Finn and so Mia gets the contract. Finn also tells Allie he'll divorce Mia for her; he is unaware that Mia has heard this...

After 2 episodes, I will stick with the show; not sure if it will meet my expectations ... we shall see!

Cutting It is a light, entertaining but also engrossing drama, but definitely aimed at the fairer sex!

Summary: