Once a Year on Blackpool Sands

I'll state rightaway that I gave up after forty minutes. The prospect of having to watch for more than an hour longer was too onerous to bear.

First, the acting. Really. Did any of these people have an Equity card? If they did, they should hand it back immediately. I've rarely seen such hammy thespians. Cues were missed, lines were delivered unconvincingly, interruptions were made after a gap rather than over the other person.

Then, just how much was the make up department's budget? About ten quid? The guys in the 80s suffering from AIDS had laughably-painted blobs on their skin that were meant to be Kaposi's sarcoma. Apart from that, they looked the picture of health apart from the fact that someone must have gone out and bought a pound of flour to give them an ashen look. After a beating by the cops, Eddy turns up for the outing with PINK blood lavished on his mouth and shirt. Utterly ludicrous and unconvincing.

Dialogue didn't ring true particularly amongst the female characters. The constant one-upmanship and put downs by various female characters were not true to life at all. I lived during that period and women didn't behave like that. They might have gossiped behind backs, but not at people's faces.

Then Eddy and Tommy. No real spark. No real connection between them. Indeed, no sense of camaraderie amongst the 80s guys either. They were just a bunch of actors.

I didn't know that this had previously been a play. That explains some of the film's deficiencies. What the screenplay needed was money spent on true professionals who could have adapted this properly for film. And then a competent director. However, I'm doubtful even Jarman could have got anything out of this cast.

This was a huge, awful, talentless mess. If anyone's thinking of paying to watch this, save your money.