Every few years, there are rumours that Cold Feet will return. They are usually denied pretty quickly. But this time around, the claims seem to have a little more substance, with widespread reports that the late-90s comedy-drama will fill the Sunday night void left by Downton Abbey.
Cold Feet, which ran from 1998 to 2003, is very much a product of its era, and that is where it should stay. It was born in a time where Manchester seemed to buzz with sharp-suited women, turn-of-the-millennium optimism and affordable houses in which attractive people would sit drinking red wine out of enormous glasses.
These people lived their lives to a soundtrack of Space’s Female of the Species and had well-paid jobs in glass-panelled offices. If they struck lucky, they got to date a dying breed of dotcom millionaires. They would meet through friends or, if they were really daring, in a noisy bar. When they split up, as Adam (James Nesbitt) and Rachel (Helen Baxendale) did every five minutes, the soppy men would make grand gestures to pursue their hard-faced prey. Who could forget the sight of Adam, naked except for a rose stuck up his bum, serenading Rachel?
What a beautiful age it was, and surely one best left in the past, rather than spoiled with the trappings of the modern world such as Tinder, Lidl and synching your Spotify playlists.
Oh sure, you might think you want a Cold Feet revival, but deep down, you don’t. Remember how everyone looked forward to This Life’s 10-year anniversary special, then hid behind their hands as Egg and his drug-hoovering housemates hadn’t grown up at all, despite their big houses and careers in life coaching? Unless you count Anna swapping her insatiable horn for an urge to find a sperm donor, which is not something to hope for in terms of life goals.
In Cold Feet’s day, the issues tackled by its thirtysomething characters were abortion, cancer, the frustration of new motherhood and the challenge of trying to mount your nanny once you turned 40, as upper-class bumbler David (Robert Bathurst) did.
Now it is 12 years later, so they will all be forty- or fiftysomethings. In reality, being in that age group today is pretty much the same as being the kind of thirtysomethings that Cold Feet portrayed at the end of the last century. In financial terms, it takes longer to earn the kind of kitchen that Karen (Hermione Norris) would find acceptable. This lot have already been through their mid-life crises, so by now there is little left for them to do other than fall asleep watching Downton on a Sunday night.
That’s a shame, because Helen Baxendale slipped into the “loosened-up, flirty mum of grownup kids” role so well in Cuckoo. Sadly, her character Rachel is impossible to revive: she was killed by a lorry while rummaging for a tape to play in the car stereo. You couldn’t find a more 90s way to go. OK, so she was the most annoying character, but the ensemble wouldn’t be the same without her.
A prequel wouldn’t work either. There is no way the characters would pull off being in their 20s (unless they want to resemble the cast of Wet Hot American Summer), although it would be fun to see them rise to the challenge of reliving their wild years with the kind of wasted behaviour so expertly done by Not Safe for Work.
Shows such as ITV’s short-lived Married, Single, Other have tried to “do a Cold Feet”, with similar themes and romantic, hangdog men flanked by practical women. None have been as successful, proving that the relationship dramedy of that era has largely gone the way of the dinosaurs. As for Cold Feet, it should follow the example set by Friends – constantly repeated, but never rebooted.
