‘The Full Monty’ Review: TV Tedium in Sheffield

Was some delusional buff clamoring for yet another “Full Monty” reboot? (There was a 2000 musical and 2013 play.) Well, if so, he got what he deserves. The original was certainly a well-received movie—it won one Oscar (for Anne Dudley’s music) and was cited in three other categories, including original screenplay for Simon Beaufoy (who would later win for “Slumdog Millionaire”).

Mr. Beaufoy and Alice Nutter, co-creators of the new series and unafraid of an oft-visited well, have brought together the same gents who were in the original, now playing considerably older if not wiser members of the population of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. Years earlier, for a good cause, they put on a Chippendales-type dance act, which concluded with “the full monty,” aka the dancers baring it all. The new series is haunted by the altogether terrifying notion that these shall-we-say-mature characters might suddenly appear in the altogether. Whether they do will not be unveiled here.

A film with a gimmick and a painfully slow payoff, “The Full Monty” won viewers over by combining its comedy with a number of sobering messages about joblessness, fathers’ rights, body image, gayness, suicide and the culture of middle-class Britain. All those issues are addressed anew, but the characters have become vehicles for such cultural and social welfare complaints—about the National Health Service, underserved schools, physical disabilities, bullying, lack of opportunity and, as personified by the ever-grifting Gaz ( Robert Carlyle ), parental irresponsibility. He and his daughter, Destiny (Talitha Wing), provide the emotional center of the story, but the writing won’t lead anyone to the conclusion that this estranged twosome is going to inevitably reconcile over what are, for her at least, a lifetime of differences and being shortchanged. He remains a fairly clueless and hence unsuccessful hustler; she is angry and unhappy to the point of sourness. Only the demands of time and a script suggest that a resolution will occur between these two. Those demands are all too obvious.

Without any destination, “The Full Monty” redux resorts to situation comedy. Des and a pal, looking for a way to get back to school after ditching class, steal an idling minivan, inside of which is the very same dog that has just won “Britain’s Got Talent”—which is “exactly what’s wrong with this country,” according to Tom Wilkinson’s Gerald. Without revealing too much, the adventures with the dog involve Gaz-driven schemes regarding ransom and murder for insurance, but no animals were harmed during the making of, etc. etc. It is just tiresome.

One of the nagging, bothersome questions about “The Full Monty” as a story is “What in the world went on during the preceding quarter century?” Sheffield is far worse off than it was, and it was never portrayed as a garden spot. Some people had children, lost them, alienated them, lost their jobs or moved into real careers like Jean (Lesley Sharp), who now supervises the underfunded school that her husband, Dave (Mark Addy), tries to keep running as the maintenance man. Lomper and Guy ( Steve Huison and Hugo Speer ) operate the local cafe, called the Big Baps, which is apparently a vulgarity in Brit-slang but the gay couple don’t know it. (Guy later Frenchifies the name to the Grand Pain). Guy gripes about “hashtag me too” and says that their friend Darren (Miles Jupp) got the “heave-ho from work” for calling someone “luv.” (“I believe the term is called ‘canceled,’” says Darren.) There’s much bemoaning of the world as the men find it, but they seem to have just found it, after 25 years in hiding.

Granted, the same kind of whine can be heard on this side of the pond, which may make this “Full Monty” international in its plaints. But no less tedious for it.

—Mr. Anderson is the Journal’s TV critic.