Cinema - Starter For Ten

Starter For Ten is the latest movie by Tom Vaughan, who directed the popular TV series Cold Feet in the nineties. If you were a student in the 1980’s you might just love it, because it will help take you back to those halcyon days of floppy hair, vegetarian baked potatoes and jangly guitar music. If you weren’t, you probably needn’t read any further.

There’s more to it than just a nostalgia fest, actually, but for me it scored most points when it reminded me of a similar ‘education’ in a similar university 150 miles or so from the Bristol it’s set in. The soundtrack, for a start: The Cure, The Smiths, The Psychadelic Furs, The Buzzcocks. And the fashion - donkey jackets and doctor Martens and CND badges. Then the need, if you’re studying the arts, to pretend that you know so much more than you actually do, which can translate, if you’re not careful, into your day to day life. Pretentious, moi? Mais oui.
James McAvoy plays a working class lad who gets into university and feels he needs to prove himself in just such a way. He learns useless facts and gets on the University Challenge team, in order to get close to the doll-like blonde girl who everyone fancies. In doing so he fails to notice that a far more suitable girl is interested in him. But you won’t be talking afterwards about the silly rom-com plot. You’ll be talking about the good old days, and how Mark Gatiss puts in an incredible performance as quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne. AL