[An Enemy of the Circle]

Non essential 3/5.

This 3hr co-production 'tween The Nu Vic and Oldham Colsm throws everything up in the air - unecessary self narration, war time tunes and an unhinged fiercely Catholic Mother - to produce a fairly rambling tale of a Geordie family (at war) during WW2 which never is given a chance to flow.

The tone's too high velocity with everyone snapping at each other, only Ged McKenna as the old soldier slows things down to produce most of the amusement (despite a dodgy Walker accent).

The lack of depth of characterisation means it all plays a bit like a historial record of Britain at War/meets Dads Army thereby lacking relevance. The best parts are the one-one encounters between the 2 younger couples.

That aside, there's a lot of Nostalgia value - and the production clearly touched personal bases with some of the senior audience members and was well received by all at the end.

ps at least 8 spam references