Pilot (Cold Feet)

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Cold Feet is a 1997 British one-off television comedy drama produced by Granada Television for ITV. It was directed by Declan Lowney and stars James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale as Adam and Rachel, a couple who meet and fall in love, only for the relationship to break down when he gets cold feet. John Thomson, Fay Ripley, Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst appear in supporting roles. The piece was written by Mike Bullen, a BBC radio producer with little screenwriting experience, who was tasked with creating a one-off television production that would appeal to middle-class television audiences, who the executive producer Andy Harries believed were underepresented on British television.

It was broadcast nearly an hour late on 30 March 1997, resulting in low audience figures and lukewarm critical reviews. Despite this, Harries submitted it to the jury at the Montreux Television Festival, where it won the Golden Rose of Montreux. The incoming programming director of ITV quickly commissioned a series to follow it, which ran for five successful years between 1998 and 2003. While the on-screen title is given as Cold Feet, official literature and interviews with the programme makers refer to it as "Pilot" or "the pilot episode".^[2][3]

[edit] Plot

Adam Williams (James Nesbitt) breaks up with another in a long line of girlfriends and spends the evening at the pub with his friend Pete Gifford (John Thomson). Pete arrives home late, which annoys his wife Jenny (Fay Ripley), who calculated that night to be the best time for them to conceive a child. She becomes even more frustrated when she sees Pete has brought Adam back; he missed his last bus home. Rachel Bradley's (Helen Baxendale) boyfriend Simon Atkinson (Stephen Mapes) breaks up with her over dinner after taking a job in Hong Kong. Rachel angrily leaves the restaurant and telephones her friend Karen Marsden (Hermione Norris), who has just asked her husband David (Robert Bathurst) if they can get a nanny to take care of their son Josh.

Rachel crashes her car into Adam's on a supermarket car park. After a brief argument Adam suggests they exchange phone numbers, under the pretence that it is for insurance purposes. She writes hers on his rear windscreen but rain washes it off. Prompted by Pete, Adam spends a day on the supermarket car park, in the hope that he and Rachel will cross paths, but they do not meet. At a dinner party held by Karen and David, Karen suggests Rachel get out more and advises her to call Adam. They go on a date but Adam is disappointed that Rachel does not want sex. Eventually, he suggests they see a play, which happens to be on at a theatre near his house. The play is dismal but Rachel decides it is time they slept together. Jenny takes another pregnancy test, but it is negative. Adam arrives and recounts his dates with Rachel to her and Pete, telling them he loves Rachel.

Following a discussion with Pete about women and commitment, Adam argues with Rachel and angrily leaves her flat. Seconds later Simon returns, telling Rachel he has turned down the Hong Kong job. After getting locked out the house, Karen interrupts a seminar David is holding, demanding they get a nanny. He relents, embarrassed after being shown up in front of his colleagues. Determined to get Rachel back, Adam goes to Simon's flat, where he serenades her wearing nothing but a rose between his buttocks. Jenny and Pete arrive to find Simon chasing a naked Adam down the street. The fight is interrupted by a passing policeman, who lists multiple felonies Adam has committed, until Rachel steps forward and takes the blame for what has happened. She declares her love to Adam and the two leave. Pete and Jenny watch and she tells him her last pregnancy test was positive.^[2]

[edit] Cast

See also: List of Cold Feet cast members#First appeared in pilot

• James Nesbitt as Adam Williams, a serial womaniser who believes he has finally found the right woman in Rachel, only to lose her when he begins to fear commitment.
• Helen Baxendale as Rachel Bradley, a woman whose boyfriend has dumped her to take a job in Hong Kong. She finds solace with Adam until he tries to look for a way out of the relationship.
• John Thomson as Pete Gifford, a friend of Adam's whose wife Jenny wants a child.
• Fay Ripley as Jenny Gifford, a friend of Adam's who is trying to get pregnant with her husband Pete.
• Robert Bathurst as David Marsden, a friend of Rachel's who is keen on wine and Simon, though not so much on Adam.
• Hermione Norris as Karen Marsden, a friend of Rachel's who is looking to hire a nanny.
• Stephen Mapes as Simon Atkinson, Rachel's boyfriend.

[edit] Production

Writer Mike Bullen pitched the story to producer Christine Langan in 1996 as a "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girls back" story told from both sides of the relationship.^[4] Bullen's only previous script had been produced by Granada, and Andy Harries—the company's head of comedy—was keen to use more of his ideas. Harries, Bullen and Langan decided that there was little television marketed at their age group—the thirty-somethings—beyond working-class soap operas and costume dramas.^[5] Bullen and Langan set to redress the balance by making a programme that followed the same production format as American television programmes such as Hill Street Blues and thirtysomething.^[5] Harries ordered a pilot episode, with a potential series to follow.^[6] Though only the pilot was required, Bullen storylined a potential series.^[7]

Bullen's pitch set the programme in North London, an idea nixed in pre-production stages by Harries and Langan, who wanted to set it set in Manchester. This was to keep production costs down, make it accessible to an audience who were not interested in the lives of middle-class Londoners, and to make it more inviting for ITV to commission a full series.^[8] The climax was originally scripted to be more farcical, with Adam passing Rachel's balcony on the roof of a double-decker bus.^[9] Bullen's screenwriting inexperience lead him to base the characters on people from his own life: Adam was based on himself before he met his wife, and Rachel was based on "the fantasy girlfriend" and a combination of real-life ex-girlfriends. Harries encouraged him to develop the other four characters in order to get the series commission, so Bullen "tacked on" the subplots about Pete and Jenny's pregnancy and Karen and David's nanny woes.^[3]

[edit] Casting

The main cast had quite low public profiles before being cast in Cold Feet. Comedian John Thomson was known to viewers as "Fat Bob" from Steve Coogan's shows, and had appeared in a minor role in Bullen's The Perfect Match, from which Langan remembered him.^[8] James Nesbitt, known for his recurring role in the BBC One drama Ballykissangel, was recommended by Declan Lowney.^[8] The most famous face in the cast was Helen Baxendale, who had been nominated for a Scottish BAFTA for her role as Dr. Claire Maitland in Cardiac Arrest.^[8] Fay Ripley assumed she would be auditioning for Rachel but secured the role of Jenny after "bodg[ing] together a sort of Manchester accent" in her audition with Thomson.^[10] Robert Bathurst was known to the producers for his role in comedies;^[11] he played the main character in Joking Apart and had also appeared in the first episode of Red Dwarf, and The Lenny Henry Show. He did not expect to win the role of David, the sleek management consultant, because of his "bearded and shaggy" appearance at the audition (he was starring in The Rover at the time) but his "disciplined comic energy" won him the part.^[12][11] The last of the main actors to be cast was Hermione Norris, who made the role of Karen "sexy and likeable".^[13] She initially auditioned for Rachel but the producers had her read for Karen as well because her social class matched the character.^[9]

[edit] Filming

Declan Lowney had directed the first two series of the acclaimed situation comedy Father Ted. He was initially hesitant to direct Cold Feet because he did not like the script, believing the characters to be too smug. He changed his mind when he realised the programme was conceived for audiences like himself. Filming was scheduled over a 12-day period on Granada's soundstages and on location in Manchester.^[9] For the climax involving the rose, Nesbitt was required to be nearly naked on an open set, save for a small posing pouch that was not visible on screen. There was a risk that production could be shut down if any complaints were made to the police about the shooting of the scene, so the production manager ensured Nesbitt was covered up whenever he was not required to be filmed. Filming the five-minute scene took about two hours.^[14] Unlike many British television programmes in the mid-1990s, Cold Feet was shot on film and in widescreen, though the broadcast version was full screen. The song "Female of the Species" by Space was used incidentally throughout the programme; the instrumental version plays over the opening credits and the full lyrical version is heard during a first-act montage. The track was chosen by Langan after she heard it on The Chart Show.^[15] The rest of the incidental music and the main end credits theme was composed by The Other Two.^[15]

[edit] Broadcast and reception

Following post-production the programme was shelved by ITV Network Centre until 1997, when it was placed on the Easter weekend schedule. The broadcast, scheduled for a 9 p.m. start on 30 March, went head-to-head with launch night of Channel 5, Britain's last terrestrial television channel, and the second part of the BBC1 drama The Missing Postman. Also broadcast on 30 March was ITV's coverage of the 1997 Brazilian Grand Prix; the race was restarted due to an accident and threw ITV's evening schedules into disarray. Broadcast eventually began 40 minutes later than originally advertised and the overnight ratings reflected this; it recorded viewing figures of just 3.5 million.^[16] Both Harries and Bathurst wrote it off as a failure, with Harries recorded as telling Langan that a series would not come about and Bathurst believing it to be another failed pilot.^[16][17] Chairing a television panel, influential television critic Mark Lawson predicted a series would not be commissioned.^[18]

Some critical success came though; writing in The Sun the day after it aired, Tim Ewbank expressed surprise that a "fast, funny, convincing" comedy had appeared on ITV, calling it "a treat" and "sharply observed", and Baxendale and Nesbitt "terrific".^[19] The Times's Matthew Bond echoed Ewbank's reaction, writing that Cold Feet "is an enjoyable one-off comedy aimed at anybody who's ever been single, married, or had children. With such catholic appeal further heightened by Helen Baxendale heading a talented cast, it showed just what ITV can do when it is trying to win awards, such as the Goldren Rose of Montreux."^[20] Harries did submit it to the jury at the Montreux Television Festival, where it won the Silver Rose in the Humour category and the Golden Rose itself.^[21] The jury was headed by David Liddiment, who became ITV's director of channels in the latter half of 1997 and was influential in ordering a full series from Harries.^[16]

After the success at Montreux ITV scheduled a repeat of Cold Feet for 25 May. A. A. Gill, who had not seen the original broadcast, wrote that "it was lifted from being merely whimsical by some bow-tight comic acting and a great script", though he did not see the Golden Rose win as a particularly glorious achievement, citing the saturation of the Montreux Festival by British programmes in the 1990s.^[22] Further recognition came at the end of the year at the British Comedy Awards when Cold Feet won the Best Comedy Drama (ITV) award. Helen Baxendale was nominated for Top Television Comedy Actress for her role as Rachel, losing to Dawn French.^[23] The programme has retained the interest of reviewers several years after its original broadcast; writing for The Jerusalem Post, Aryeh Dean Cohen said, "The cast sparkles all around, as does the script, and the characters are endearing and believable."^[24]

Granada's sale of the series package to American cable network Bravo in 2000 included this pilot. Bravo hired agency G WhiZ to design a series of print and media advertisements for the series to run in such publications as The New York Times. G WhiZ based their campaign on the shot of Adam's buttocks, which lead to many publications either asking for an alternative or refusing to carry the promotion outright.^[25]

[edit] Home video release

Cold Feet's first home video publication came in 1999 when it was released on VHS by Video Collection International, with the subtitle "A comedy about life, love & everything else!" A short behind-the-scenes feature on the filming of the second series was included. It was also released as an extra feature on the double video set and DVD of the first series.^[26] The first DVD release contained the full screen version and a second release in 2006 restored it to the original widescreen.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Smith, Rupert (2003). Cold Feet: The Complete Companion (in English). London: Granada Media. ISBN 023300999X. 
• Tibballs, Geoff (2000). Cold Feet: The Best Bits... (in English). London: André Deutsch Ltd.. ISBN 0233999248. 

[edit] External links

• Cold Feet at itv.com—includes free streaming of the pilot and first series (available only to UK Internet Explorer users)
• Cold Feet at the British Film Institute
• Cold Feet at the Internet Movie Database