It was, said actor Fay Ripley, like putting on a comfy old jumper, or running into a friend you hadn’t seen for years and remembering how much you liked them.
Thirteen years after the curtain fell on Cold Feet, most of the cast of the hugely influential ITV drama gathered in London on Friday to talk about its hotly anticipated return for a sixth series and the experience of stepping back into the roles that made each of them famous.
Adam, Pete, Jenny, Karen and David may now use Airbnb, talk to their children on FaceTime and hunt for dates via Tinder, but in the new series, which will be aired in September, they are recognisably the characters that captivated TV audiences in the late 90s, albeit older and a little worn down by life.
The groundbreaking Granada comedy, whose pilot was screened on the night Channel 5 launched in 1997, was showered with awards during its five-series run, and came to define a generation of thirtysomethings who were settling into parenthood just as their relationships began running into trouble.
But after two of the three Manchester couples at its heart had divorced and the character of Rachel, played by Helen Baxendale, was killed off in a car crash, many felt the programme had run its course, broadcasting what seemed certain to be its last episode in March 2003.
And yet, said John Thomson, who played Pete, husband to Ripley’s Jenny, in the years since the programme ended, someone has stopped him on a weekly basis and asked when it was coming back. “The demand for the show is quite incredible,” he told journalists.
So why now? TV history is littered with the corpses of beloved programmes that have been unwisely resurrected, and Kevin Lygo, director of television at ITV, admitted the broadcaster had been “very nervous” about bringing it back. The prospect of a new series written by the show’s creator and executive producer, Mike Bullen, had proved too much to resist, however.
“We’re supposed to be living in a golden age of drama,” said Lygo, “but there is so much crime and thriller and period [drama], that it’s really good to see a show that’s not in those genres, that’s about real people, that’s warm and funny and moving.” It was not a remake, he insisted. “It’s a sixth series, after a 13-year gap.”
“The world isn’t in a great place at the moment, we know that,” said Thomson, “and I think there’s a great need for nostalgia, to look back to when things were OK. I think the timing couldn’t be better.”
When we left them back in the early noughties, Pete and Jenny had reconciled after each having relationships with other people, Robert Bathurst’s David was divorcing Karen, played by Hermione Norris, and in a relationship with his lawyer, and James Nesbitt’s character Adam, grief-stricken after losing Rachel, left Manchester with their baby son, Matthew.
Thirteen years later, the characters are in their late 40s and early 50s, with growing children – who will also be central to the new series – and at a time of life that Bullen has said intrigued him enough to resurrect them.
“They are still ambitious, but for different things,” said Bathurst. “There’s a lot more yearning, and I think that’s reflected in the show. But it’s still funny.”
Unhappily for those unable to wait until the series launches, however, journalists attending the packed preview in a central London hotel were obliged to sign strict non-disclosure agreements barring them from revealing significant plot points. Suffice to say the five lead characters are still friends, Adam still mourns for Rachel while trying to move on , and his relationship with 15-year-old Matthew, played by Ceallach Spellmann, is not an easy one.
The first episode even tips a wink at Nesbitt’s changed appearance – the actor has had a number of hair transplants since the programme ended in 2003 – when Pete asks Adam early in the first episode if he has more hair than he used to. “No! Maybe ... ”
Nesbitt, tied up with filming commitments elsewhere, was not at the press conference but Thomson joked that the issue of his hair growth “had to be addressed”.
As for the prospect of further series after this one, that will be for audiences to decide, but Thomson said he had felt, after watching the opening episode of the series, “I would be gutted if I was told, ‘that’s it.’ That happens so often in TV these days.”
So how do they explain the programme’s enduring success? “The show’s never been about anything,” said Bathurst. “It’s about people, how they rumble on together and what life throws at them. Cold Feet was never something you could tell people was going to be any good until they had seen it.”
