These Foolish Things

This appalling Merchant Ivory-lite romance about an aspiring young actress in ‘30s London comes across like ‘Bullets over Broadway’ for the ITV2 generation. The main problem is that when the film lurches into one of its many narrative cul-de-sacs, writer/director Taylor-Stanley simply adds more characters, never allowing enough time to acquire emotional inroads with any of them.

The sloppy period design consists of a bunch of jazz-handing extras with cigarette holders stuck in their mouths while the studied ’30s mannerisms feel like they’ve been cut and pasted straight from Wikipedia.

An ill-matched cast sees television drama ex-pats trade naff one-liners with the likes of Lauren Bacall, Joss Ackland and Anjelica Huston, whose appearance adds little pedigree to what amounts to a monotonous chain of formulaic romantic clichés. And the less said of Terence Stamp’s horrifying impersonation of John Gielgud’s silver-tongued valet in ‘Arthur’ the better.