I Watch Films: Hunting Venus

 

Hunting Venus

Con artist Simon Delancey (Martin Clunes) hits it big when he steals an old woman’s life savings and a rare valuable jewelled dog collar. Checking into a B&B on his way to try and sell it he runs into Jacqui and Cassandra (Jane Horrocks). He doesn’t recognise them but they remember him; in 1983 he was leader of a New Romantic pop group the Venus Hunters and they were the fan club leaders. However the band broke up and he vanished with money that Jacqui and Cass had to repay.

They blackmail him; there’s a Later… With Jools Holland New Romantics special and they’ve been contacted to get the band back together. This takes up the middle section of the story, tracking them down, finding out what their deal was and now is. Charlie (Neil Morrissey) has transitioned and is now Charlotte. This is treated with more delicacy than Peter (Mark Williams) who had a nervous breakdown on tour and stutters, though he’s now made lots of computer money using his synthesiser expertise. And even more so than the drummer Gavin (Ben Miller) who was 16 when they went on tour and has been committed to a mental health institution.

John, plumber and shagger, is the one who seems least changed.

Clunes and Morrissey had been the males leads in sitcom Men Behaving Badly and this was them together for the first time since that finished. It’s about nostalgia, using nostalgia… ah well. Twenty five years on, I’m reminded that I missed the start the first time around, so hadn’t really got how scummy Delancey was. Am I nostalgic about this nostalgia-based comedy? Maybe a little, it throws in gender, sexuality, mental health and trauma without trying to be about any of them. But also Jools Holland’s Later… show has been an institution for more than 25 years. Well that’s something to make me feel old. Maybe Jools as well. The best jokes are pretty good, the song that we’re threatened/promised for the whole running length is believable, just managing to reach above the comic foundation it’s been built on.

Watch This: Some good comedy about not being able to move on from the 80s
Don’t Watch This: Nostalgia for a stupid time, now further from when it was made than the period they were nostalgic for