May Contain Nuts (TV Movie 2009)

May Contain Nuts: Directed by John Henderson. With Shirley Henderson, Sophie Thompson, Elizabeth Berrington, Darren Boyd. Part One:- Alice and David Chaplin and their children move to a gated private housing estate where status is all-important. Queen Bee Ffion, who addresses her daughter in French even in shops, sets the snobby standard and Alice is alarmed at the parents’competition to get their daughters into the fashionable Chelsea college rather than the despised local comprehensive school. Sarah McDonald even gets a job as school secretary to be close to the action. The fact remains that Alice’s daughter Molly is no academic, scoring a measly 38 per cent in her dummy run entry exam for Chelsea. Alice panics, foreseeing a life of prostitution for her daughter and decides she will impersonate Molly and take the exam herself. She narrowly avoids Ffion in a store where she is trying on teenage dresses but David reckons she still looks like a 30-year-old pretending to look 11 and so she goes for a dowdy, anonymous look when she enters the hall to sit the exam. Even Ffion fails to recognize her. Meanwhile Molly has been kept at home, supposedly poorly, whilst David supervises her taking the exam. Alice takes a deep breath but her heart sinks when she turns over the dreaded Maths paper.

“It makes a change to have a drama that isnu0026#39;t about failed relationships which seems to clog up TV these days. OK so there are a few plot holes but what a great idea. Shirley Henderson plays the part brilliantly. It is stretching it a bit for her to play an 11 year old, but it does work. Elizabeth Berrington is great as Ffion. Overall the whole cast were wonderful, the writing very funny and the director held it all together nicely without getting too silly. The previous reviewer obviously does not know the lengths that some people go to in order to get their kids in the u0026quot;rightu0026quot; school, including deliberately moving nearer. This actual scenario did happen in Amereica recently. Overall great fun and a breathe of fresh air.”