Daily Post (Liverpool), 22 February 2002. "Please, tell us something we didn't know about men." ----------------------------------------------------------- The title of the new BBC2 series, *Manchild*, gives us too much information. All women, and probably most males, know this to be sadly, maddeningly true. Franoise Sagan noted over 50 years ago: "I like men to behave like men...strong and childish!" And to have now given an author valuable airtime merely to articulate his retarded observations seems like a waste of the license payers' money. *Manchild* depicts men of a certain age who believe, "If you've got the wodge and the wherewithal, the world's your juicy fat rock oyster." That is, without wives or children, men can indulge themselves. Well, there's a stunning anthropological observation. Sort this guy out a desk at the British Library - there's a thesis coming on. This tedious self-conscious drivel is the equivalent of airing a rich teenage toff's university conversion to socialism. Everyone else has known for a long time that the Labour Party is out there. It's a little difficult to see it if you're hiding behind the parapet of pater's ancestral castle. The premise of *Manchild* is that all modern blokes around 50 want to cut loose from their domestic, financial and emotional ties and live life to the full with women half their age. Social trends and mores have changed since their fathers reached middle age, when the height of excitement was driving a Morris Oxford and saving up for a fondue set. The programme also pays homage to those males who have remained resolutely single "not because they're torn by some strange, Cliff Richard-complex, but because they're too busy lapping up the pleasures of life." In this instance it means visiting chi-chi night club, drinking vintage champagne and collecting Beatles memorabilia. Oh no, not that old chestnut again. If I had a pound for every contemporary confessional novel I've read where the male protagonist can only find true fulfilment from snuggling up with a die cast model of Lovely Rita Meter Maid I'd be able to treat Heather Mills to an Elizabeth Emanual wedding dress from the designer's vegetarian collection. Most of the male characters in *Manchild* are resolutely unattractive in every possible way. Their front man is the foppish Nigel Havers who speaks directly to the camera in the style of Michael Caine in *Alfie*. The problem here is that Nigel Havers lacks both acting ability and sex appeal. He really does run the gamut of emotions from A to B. Presumably he's been chosen on the grounds that all women like "a bit of posh," but he prances and preens on stage, fringe a-flopping, like an Afghan hound. Given that he's meant to be humorous, this is disastrous casting. Remember his as Lord Lah-Di-Dah jumping over champagne-laden hurdles in *Chariots of Fire*? I think that was the pinnacle of his career. Everyone knows aristos are not funny. Take Tara Palmer Tompkinson. Well, OK, bad example. She is hilarious, but not for reasons of her own choosing. The one good gag involving Havers is when an acne-ridden motorbike mechanic ridicules him for liking Harley Davidsons, the refuge of weekend posers and old geezers: "They're good for cutting the grass. We call 'em Hardly Able-tos." And for the oldest swinger in town, he does wear his trousers at Simon Cowell level, up around his bosoms. A current theme running throughout the programme is that there are always young girls who will be entranced by the charm, experience and money of men like these. In other words, a meal ticket in Tommy Hilfiger chinos. Yet the physical shortcomings of men over-50 are rather too graphically depicted in order to remind these young wenches of a few of life's truisms. Yes, most 24-year-old males will think of Sylvester Stallone and not nineteenth century French poetry when you mention Rimbaud, but at least they won't need jump leads in bed. The only redeeming feature of this dismal offering is Anthony Head, aka Giles in *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* and the smoothie neighbor in the simmering Will they/Won't they coffee ads of the 1980s. He of the aforementioned failing hydraulics. Unlike the others, he can do irony as well as upper-middle. He twinkles in front of the camera and has more than a hint of the two-dimensional about him. But the test thing about this programme is the Bryan Ferry theme tune. And for that reason alone, I'll probably carry on watching. ----------------------------------------------------------- Bentley's Bedlam http://www.BetsyDa.com/bedlam.html This website is for information and entertainment purposes only and is not intended to infringe on copyrights held by others.