Robert Carlyle reveals hesitation about revisiting The Full Monty

The 1997 film, written by Simon Beaufoy, followed the exploits of six unemployed men who put on a male striptease act to raise some cash – lauded by critics, it won the BAFTA for Best Film and also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. It was a box office hit too, becoming the highest-grossing British film of all time.

In the age of the “legacy sequel“, a follow-up might seem like a no-brainer, but speaking at a BFI screening promoted online by MarkMeets the first two episodes, Robert Carlyle returns as charismatic chancer Gaz – admitted he had some initial reservations about revisiting The Full Monty.

He explained: “There is a certain amount of hesitation about it, because you don’t want to do anything that’s in any way going to downgrade the memory of the film, so at first you’re like… ‘Are you sure about this?’

“It was through conversations with Simon and then eventually looking at the scripts and saying, ‘I can see what this is, he’s taken it on and it’s 25 years later… that was then, this is now.'”

The eight-part series, Carlyle insisted, is “not trying to remake The Full Monty” – for one thing, the old gang won’t be getting their kit off.

“We’re not trying to do that,” he said. “It’s an entirely different thing. So once you’re reading it, all these reservations were soon put to bed.”

Mark Addy (Dave), Tom Wilkinson (Gerald), Steve Huison (Lomper), Paul Barber (Horse), Lesley Sharp (Jean), William Snape (Nathan) and more cast members from the original join Carlyle in the sequel series.