How To Re-Make A Bad English Movie

Things To Do Before You're Thirty – one of many joint equal holders of the worst British film award – was an awful film of a really good idea. A bunch of men who play for an amateur football team are asked by a female journalist what they would like to do before they turn thirty. The journo is a friend of most of their partners. So the men scribble down various answers, many of which are either silly Man Things or guaranteed to upset their partners – the young lad with Billie Piper for a girlfriend wants to have a threesome. The journo publishes the list and shares it with their partners and the rest of the movie goes over the usual arguments, revelation of homosexuality and missed threesome with Billie Piper (I was very upset at that bit). After splitting up, leaving and breaking friendships, everyone comes together at the end to Win The Final Match. Trust me, it doesn't work a tenth as well as it sounds. It was written by an Eastenders staff writer. Right at the start you ask how the lads could be so dumb as to tell a journalist the truth, later, when you meet some of their partners, you wonder how on earth they ever got together in the first place, and of course you wonder what a girl who looks like Billie Piper is doing going out with a scrawny lad who looks like that. The whole thing is implausible – especially the Gay Revelation moment.

So this is how it could have been done. The journo asks for the lists, the lads write down some suitably harmless twaddle designed to be shown to their partners – because they are smart enough to work that out - except one who tells it like it is for him – call him The Lad. Over the next week, they discuss the question, in pairs and threes, finding out that none of them told the truth. So what would do they want to do, they ask each other – safe this time from the censorious eyes of the female. This lets us see the relationships between them, understand who they are and what their lives are like. Some of them, we learn, have Things To Lose, while others Have Yet To Live (this would be Billie Piper's boyfriend) and some Hate Where They Are. We meet their partners, most of whom are Thoroughly Nice Women – except The Bitch and the Wet Rag. Now we know what the stakes are. One by one the men start to go after what they want, and discover the price in terms of work, change and above all conscience. We learn the difference between a fantasy and a dream. We cheer when the Bitch gets hers, shake our heads sadly when the Wet Rag gets left behind, chuckle when The Lad comes good, approve when dreams are abandoned for Marriage And Children, wonder if marriage and children will last when He Takes A Job In Another Town, and the boyfriend lets himself get jumped by a girl we've only seen in the background after he sees Billie Piper going at it with another girl one evening. Cue music and close with a three-way cut between one of the lads getting ready to sky-dive (which was what he wanted to do) and another with his girlfriend getting ready to ski-jump and the Bitch unpacking her bags in a new town. (I like a little ambiguity in the ending.)

Okay, there's more to this, and it will follow.

We had the Big Announcement today and I understand that there were tears and tantrums in Chester. There were some stony faces in London. No-one understands the new organisation, which is littered with junior analyst posts. The job descriptions are a hoot, the roles are shallow and ill-thought out. Of course they are - the whole thing was made up of whole cloth from the senior guy's head. Or is the most calculated series of insults HR ever came out with - nah, they aren't that smart. Between now and next June, everyone will have to apply for a job in the new organisation. If they don't get one - and twenty per cent of the roles are going - they win compulsory redundancy. Now the thing to see is how many people decide they have had enough of being messed around by an insensitive, self-centered organisation and take the money. My guess is that it will be way more than HR expect.