40: The Complete Series

Before the vacillating interests of Skins, writer Bryan Elsley first came to prominence with this three-part drama that was first screened on Channel 4 in March 2003.

40 is a portmanteau piece that focuses on the lives of seven school-friends who become inextricably linked due to a combination of emotional and sexual desires on the cusp of their 40th year.

With plenty of cross-cutting and wobbly cam, this does feel almost like television from another era (already!) as it sprang from a time of knitting several stories together with little through line and the hope that the sum of the parts negates the fact that the whole is really quite unsatisfying. It seems doubly strange that this show has taken so long to arrive on DVD, since surely it would have been more prescient to release it when the show (and the headlines it caused - Eddie Izzard in the altogether, anyone?) was still fresh in people's minds, unlike the forgotten memory of television that this has now become.

A number of the sub-plots seemly slightly tacked on, especially the brief flirtations with illegal immigration and sex trade issues, to the extent that it is almost trying to embrace so many contentious issues (of the time) that some of it will resonate with the audience, but equally it seems quite unclear who the target demographic should be. A brave attempt, but somehow it all feels like treading water for Elsley who seems to finally have hit his stride with the taboo-busting Skins.

Extras: None.

Released on 19th May 2008 by 4DVD.

Written by Simon Cole.