These Foolish Things

"The curtain can’t fall fast enough on this inept potboiler..."

"Like a sherry-befuddled old stage dame, this homage to 1930s luvvie-dom seems unaware of how preposterous it looks in the real world. It follows three young hopefuls - an actress, a writer and a director - through the ordeals of London's theatreland, which seem to have been assembled from fictional sources such as Merchant Ivory films and Agatha Christie TV specials. Their painful double entendres make Are You Being Served? look like Oscar Wilde, but more worrying is the number of laughable lines that clearly weren't meant to be funny..."

"Backstage romance has made for many a fine film. This is not one of them. In fact, compared with this tosh, the sentimental whimsy of Mrs Henderson Presents looks gritty and cynical..."

"A romance so old-fashioned that audiences will be checking not just their watches but their calendars, These Foolish Things is a well made but achingly square drama. Zoe Tapper stars as Diana Shaw, an acting wannabe in 30s London whose attempts to tread the boards without falling flat on her face are interspersed with interludes ripped straight from the pages of Mills and Boon. Terence Stamp and Angelica Huston breathe some much-needed life into proceedings, but otherwise this is for incurable romantics only..."