Seen within a few minutes of one another last week in London: a series of advertisements for computers running the Windows NT system, with the slogan 'The Full MoNTy', and a headline in a tabloid newspaper crying 'Give us the Full Monty, Gordon'.
It's a measure of the film's success that the description 'the full Monty', until now more often associated with the English cooked breakfast, has become so widely used in recent weeks. And, given that the film is about male strippers, the mind boggles at that tabloid headline, which was actually about Britain's reluctance to commit to a fiscal union with the rest of Europe.
The plot of the film is very simple - a group of redundant Sheffield steelworkers are looking for alternative ways to earn their keep and, in desperation, come up with the idea of mounting a strip show. But the effect is in the execution, and in the acting; there are such wonderful moments as when a redundant foreman, played by Tom Wilkinson, has a visit from the bailiffs, or when the slightly tubby steelworker played by Mark Addy attempts a very novel approach to losing weight.
Starting with an archive film from the 1970s, about Sheffield's then thriving industry, 'The Full Monty' actually tells us a great deal about the collapse of a society based on heavy industry. Light-hearted as it is, it addresses a very important question: when the traditional sources of livelihood in places like Sheffield disappear, what needs to replace them?
It's good fun, and good-natured fun as well because the characters are invariably both fallible and likeable. Despite being set among such economic desolation, a genuine feel-good film.
-- Martin Rich Phone(0171) 477 8627 Fax(0171) 477 8628 Lecturer in Information Management City University Business School Frobisher Crescent Barbican Centre, London EC2Y 8HB, UK M.G.Rich@city.ac.uk http://www.city.ac.uk/martin
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