Also, Gian Sammarco (the original Mole) knew how to understate the part. The new actor just looks and sounds like a press-the-right-buttons actorrrrrrr from the post-Coogan school of looking and talking like THAT.

Is Adrian supposed to be annoying? I always found this yet other people always said he was sweet. And that guy on the programme isn't right, too predictable. Can't stand the woman from friends.

Has anyone else been reading the third part in The Weekend section of the Guardian, the plot lines don't seem to fit together.

Also, why doesn't Adrian have a Leicester accent?

putting Ashby De La Zouch on the map was the best thing about it.

I've driven through Ashby de la Zouch y'know..

*proud*

I live about 10 miles from there.

ok, it's not much to be proud of, but I'm easily pleased.

From what I read of it (about 50 pages in WHSmiths, Leeds railway station, waiting for a train back to London), The Cappuccino Years was incisive, amusing, not over-pleased with itself. Not bad at all.

The TV spin-off though...oh dear. Just was not funny. I'm glad someone mentioned it could have been Coogan - it almost looked like they'd tried to make Mole a sort of Partridge relative for this new adaptation. Baxendale was an opportunistic choice for the role of Pandora, and as such, embarrassing.

Produced by Sarah (Fist Of Fun, Armistice, Nimrod, In The Red) Smith, incidentally, although her CV would have looked alright without it, frankly.

Yes, the whole thing seemed rushed, and they'll regret it later, 'cos the book doesn't have that much plot. This may sound petty, but what rang false for me was the way the new guy seemed to have his mouth open all the time, in a look-everyone-I'm-playing-a-geek kind of way. I picture Adrian with his mouth closed most of the time, reflecting his inward, retentive nature. And it seemed like some of the actors were probably only available for shooting at brief, get it on time and on budget periods, Baxendale felt like a guest star and note the reverse angles in Keith Allen's scene.

It WAS better on the radio, when Nigel Planer read it.

He was smiling far too much, being all likeable and zany and a sympathetic character. Completely wrong. The kid from the original TV series was indeed much better, always frowning. I remember some programme about the auditioning process (it may have been a Newsround report) where they explained that they chose him because he was a timid introvert who didn't join in with all the stage-school type wankery. Whereas I suspect this new chap is a budding standup comedian.

Speaking of which, at least the rumour that Dominic Holland was going to do it turned out to be false.

> Whereas I suspect this new chap is a budding standup comedian.

yeah, kill him

I don't understand why they didn't just get Giann Sammarco to reprise the part. Is he too old now, or did he just not want to do it?

>I don't understand why they didn't just get Giann Sammarco to reprise the part. Is he too old now, or did he just not want to do it?

I thought Adrian Mole aged in more or less real time, so surely Gian Sammarco should always be the right age to play him? Unless he ages faster than normal.

Come to think of it though, how old was he when the first series went out?

Actually, on top of all that, how long was the gap between the first book and the first tv series? And the gap between the newest book and series?

I haven't really thought this through, have I?

As you were.

Didn't see the show because, the older I have become, the angrier I have got that I was suckered into reading Adrian Mole in the first place. The whole exercise is deeply presumptive (yeah - like Sue Townsend has the drop on what it's like to be an adolescent boy) and rather patronising. In interviews she is an insufferable, gushing, middle class bore - like Carla Lane with a copy of Das Kapital. No surprise that the TV show is a load of toss.

Pandora is a Blair babe played by Helen Baxendale!? Hilarious.