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.

Modest Brit-dramedy "Men Up" is the true tale of Pfizer's first clinical trial of what would become the revolutionary Viagra - held in 1994 by Dr Aneurin Barnard (supported by nurse Joanna Page) at Swansea's Morriston Hospital, focussed on a group of men with diabetes related impotency (inc Iwan Rheon, Paul Rhys, Steffan Rhodri, Mark Lewis Jobes & Phaldut Sharma). The performances are decent, while director Ashely Way & writer Matthew Barry keep the tone light & the drama lukewarm as the group bonds while the pill gives clues to the impacts it'll have on their lives and their partners (inc Alexandria Roach, Alexandria Riley & Nathan Sussex). Mild but passable fare.

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.

My Review-Men Up Streaming on Britbox My Rating 8/10

This 2023 BBC movie captures the British community spirit in the way American movies never seem to achieve.

I think it's because they are honest , unpretentious and simple stories that are uplifting, especially this movie Men Uo excuse the pun.

Men Up is similar in spirit to Joy the 2024 British movie about the birth of the IVF program which resulted in the birth of the first test tube baby .

Men Up follows the infancy and first ever trial and development of the medication Viagra that changed many men's lives plus their partners, especially those who experienced impotence due to a diagnosis of diabetes.

Set in Swansea Wales in 1994 "Men Up" follows the story of a group of new friends who meet on the trial and the effect this revolutionary pill has on their relationships at home.

Some of the characters are fictionalised to add more emphasis to the story and my two favourites were Iwan Rheon who plays the likeable but troubled Meurig Jenkins a jovial youngish husband married to Ffion played by Alexandra Roach .

Meurig blames the absence of intimate marital relations on her double mastectomy due to her husband's shame of impotency a fact he can't bring himself to discuss with his wife.

The other character I responded to was Tommy Cardigan played by Paul Rhys ,Tommy has been in a longterm same sex relationship with Reece, played by Nathan Sussex. They are shown as a couple of 20 years, though their relationship is impacted by Tommy's participation in the Viagra clinical trial because Tommy has to pretend to be heterosexual to join the trial due to the anti gay laws in the UK at that time.

Men Up has some very touching and funny moments as this group of men participate in the trial ,some are successful and some are not and their responses to both scenarios add drama and humour to the story.

The aspect of Men Up I enjoyed the most by story creator Matthew Barry is that men's sexual health is rarely discussed or depicted in a serious and objective way in movies and series.

It's usually the brunt of comedians or just ignored Matthew Barry and director Ashley Way have succeeded in creating an entertaining at times humorous but sensitive movie that would have not been possible to make before the 21st Century.

As a footnote movies like this UK movie made outside America could not be made.

If subjected to the proposed 200% tariffs by the self proclaimed King of the USA.

If imposed it will be a tragedy for World Cinema including Australia because movies are an international art form and have been since the Silent era ,there should be no economic penalty for any country.

What next a 200% tariff on novels written outside America?

The movie industry should be free of any monopoly that seeks to destroy the industry.

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.