Men Up

Wow ! What a sensitive subject mixed with breast cancer, diabetes, the tribulations of being gay, suicide and a VHS video player that expires. Swansea, The Gower, Morriston Hospital adds a poignancy to the plot especially as my family roamed from the Rhondda.

The cast were well balanced and it was fantastic not to be swamped by the star syndrome. Meurig played by Iwan Rheon just about stole it with his sensitivity, vulnerability and imitation of a boy who went up a mountain as a boy and came down as a man.

The surprising use of humour without being smutty was the master stroke. ( Oops ...see it's almost impossible to avoid double entendres ). The variety of outcomes for the not famous five was very different and yet believable. A great body of work from writer Matthew Barry and director Ashley Way.

Men Up is a BBC television movie regarding the clinical trials for a new wonder drug formulated in the 1990s. It went on to be called Viagra.

It is based on true facts which means about 1% of it is true. This dramedy features five men who have been selected by Dr Dylan Pearce (Aneurin Barnard.) He is an expert on flaccid issues caused by diabetes.

This new wonder drug could be a boon. Especially for the men who are selected to try the pills out.

Of course during the course of the movie. There are side effects, the drug is not a quick fix. The drug cannot solve some underlying issues with some of the relationships. One or two marriages are on the verge of breaking apart. One man pretends to be hetereosexual when he has been in a same sex relationship for years. Being gay was against the rules of the medical trials. For one man the drug does not work at all.

It was enjoyable enough but to me it felt like this was a movie made by a committee. There was nothing creative or edgy here.

I can imagine the writers of this sittng in a meeting wondering what they can produce as an excuse to show couples engaged in sexual activity. The outcome? Men up, A one off (Thank god) drama about the discovery of the drug called viagra. This break through may have been a game changer for many long suffering men, but as a drama it was about as relavent as news that churchill lost the election after the war. Had it concentrated more about the process of the discovery and less about the patiants, even if it were to have just cut out the bonking in the bedroom scenes, it might have worked better. But the writers were only interested in something that would show as much titilation as possible thus failing to produce something that would qualify as being something intelegent.

This unexpectedly uplifting (pun intended) Welsh viagra dramedy from Banana collaborators RTD and Matthew Barry was splurged out after Christmas on the BBC and it's a solidly warm little package sculpted out of real events which has some hardness about it but is mostly fairly flaccid. Sorry. What it lacks in punch it makes for with a tremendously good cast, the strength of which alone convinced me to watch it. The great Rheon opposite the deeply underrated Roach are solid leads but it's really Steffan Rhodri's gentle Colin and Mark Lewis Jones's bruised Eddie that steal the show for me and pushes Men Up somewhere really deep. I'm finished.

Swansea is chosen as the first location for trials of Viagra, a new medication designed to combat male impotence. The men involved in the trial form an unlikely friendship.

Well this was a real bolt out of the blue, a reminder if exactly what The BBC is capable of, as though it came from a time where The Beeb truly was delivering first class, pioneering drama.

It's very funny, it's very moving, not so much a taboo subject now as it would have been back in the 90's, but still a very sensitive area for many men.

Pete and Alice's story was very sad, Meurig's story was perhaps the highlight for me.

Chewed up tapes from Blockbuster, M People, Blur, they brought back 1994 as if it were yesterday. It was a terrific production, credit to the team involved.

I know I'm biased, hailing from this great City, but Swansea looks awesome, they picked some great locations for filming.

What can you say about the cast, phenomenal performances, Paul Rhys, Iwan Rheon, Alexandra Roach, all of them.

Swansea's finest, Joanna Page, what can I say, nothing but sheer adoration, talk about sincere, genuine and wonderful.

9/10.