Parents' Guide to The Full Monty

Genial and upbeat though it circles around serious social topics, this series picks up 26 years after 1997's original movie with the reunited cast and same affecting tone. There's no particular reason why we're meeting up now with The Full Monty's team of unemployed steelworkers who won hearts by baring their bits; Gaz, Dave, and the rest of the ex-strippers aren't getting the band back together, and there's no great precipitating event happening. But it's a pleasure all the same to see the cast again. You didn't know you missed them until you saw them, and their chemistry and individual performances retain all the charm that made the movie version of The Full Monty such a huge hit.

The 2020s find the old gang in various circumstances, many of them nearly as dire as in the 1997 film: Gaz works as a porter in a hospital so understaffed that desperate nurses are overmedicating patients to keep them quiet; Dave and wife Jean (Lesley Sharp) run the local school where budget cuts and crumbling infrastructure have made the job a nightmare. And yet there's sweetness amongst the austerity, with the old friends frequently getting together at the homey café run by Lomper (Steve Huison) and his husband Dennis (Paul Clayton) to trade witticisms that feel like they're the authentic products of several decades of friendship. Amazingly, the series reunites literally the entire cast of the movie. Dave's movie wife is now his TV wife; the young son Gaz was trying to get money for in 1997 is played by the same, now grown-up, actor, Wim Snape. The verisimilitude adds to this show's familiar and easygoing delights, and you'll find this series goes down with just as much charm as the original.