on Disney+ eight episodes between comedy and social denunciation – Corriere.it

LOS ANGELES Twenty-five years after that very famous stripteasethe “boys” of «The Full Monty – Organized penniless». From July 5, on Disney+, a eight-part series will resume telling the lives of Gaz, Dave, Horse and the others. Older than a quarter of a century and always grappling with the precariousness of life and the economic situation. It will be like finding a group of old friends: those you are unemployed who built a career in stripping after losing their jobs to the crisis in the steel industry English, won the hearts of the public then and will do so again now, with their lives still in the balance between precariousness and expedients, with their battles against medical malpractice and school cuts. In fact, not much has changed in the life of the British blue collars over the past twenty-five years. Simon Beaufoywriter in ’97 and showrunner today, e Uberto Pasoliniproducer of both projects, always talk about it with their own style poised between comedy and drama, between class struggle and good feelings.

How did the idea of a series about «Full Monty»? «Simon Beaufoy has contacted me several times over the years – replies Robert Carlyle -, we had half an idea of ​​a sequel but the risk was to make a product not up to the original. Then last year he made himself heard again with the proposal of a series that would explore the lives of the group, with the longer times of TV. Instead of ninety minutes we had eight hours for go deep and tell the existence of this group of friends, still friends despite everything. Where has life taken them, how have they changed? It seemed like a good idea to tell it, and it seemed like it to the others too, so we all said yes and set off.”

Carlyle, who plays Gaz, is the most famous among those penniless organized. In 1997 he was 36 years old, he had made himself known with «Trainspotting» but the film of international fame was indeed “Full Monty”winner of an Oscar for the soundtrack and two Baftas, best film and best leading actor, Carlyle precisely: «“Trainspotting”
exported my name to Europe, “Full Monty”
introduced me to North America. Everything changed after that film». But also return Mark Addy (Dave), Lesley Sharp (Jean), Paul Barber (Horse), Steve Huison (Lomper), Tom Wilkinson (Gerald) and Wim Snape, who in 1997 was seven years old and played the son of Gaz. He is now thirty-two and, with much to dad’s disappointmentsays the policeman. No hesitation? «Full Monty» is one of the most famous titles in cinema

of the end of the last century.

“The responsibility was great – resumes Carlyle -. So yes, a little hesitation there was, but once we started we realized the quality of what we were doing, up to the legacy of the past. This series alternates comedy moments with the denunciation of the ills of contemporary society, exactly as the film had done twenty-five years earlier. Once you understand this, the fears are diminished. How would you describe this quarter century for Gaz and his friends? “Twenty-five years have not been easy. years of economic crises, austerityof state structures that have gradually weakened, the Brexit then, a real fiasco. School has gotten worse, public health has gotten worse. All this has influenced their lives and we tell it in the course of the episodes ».

In 1997 you declared that it was thanks to the producer Uberto Pasolini, Pier Paolo’s nephew, that the film was released in the cinema and was successful. “True, without him and hers force of persuasion the film would not make it to theaters. It was born as a small independent project intended for niche circuits. Uberto insisted on wide distribution and it was the success that everyone knows. Uberto is a very talented person, I admire him a lot». What was his role in the series? «Once again he was a very attentive producer and worked closely with Andrew Chaplin, the director of the first four episodes, especially at the assembly site». There are no stripteases. “Believe me, it’s much better that way. We were thirty then, now we’re all in our sixties and seventies, it wouldn’t have been a good show see us naked”.