Cold Feet was the best of the recent TV revivals but would have been even better without James Nesbitt as the star of the show, writes Jim Shelley

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Cold Feet didn’t start well.

It began its first episode for thirteen years with the sight of James Nesbitt as Adam, returning to Manchester from Singapore looking more smug than ever.

This was despite the fact that he had never looked more ridiculous thanks to the new head of hair he appeared to have had sprayed on, making him resemble a haggard human Action Man.

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Cold Feet didn’t start well. It began its first episode for thirteen years with the sight of James Nesbitt as Adam, returning to Manchester from Singapore looking more smug than ever

Whether the star of the show was meant to be such an unbearably self-centred twerp or Nesbitt just made him seem that way was hard to say. Probably both.

Adam had flown home to tell his old gang of friends that 14 years after the death of his beloved wife Rachel and a decade of playing the field, he was getting married – to Andrea Zubayr, a beautiful bio-medical engineer who he had met only six months ago, whose father was worth £300million, and who was 18 years younger than him. Hey it could happen...

Well we were asked to believe it could, presumably on the grounds Adam was so irresistibly charming. To be honest, what Andrea saw in him was hard to say.

This was despite the fact that he had never looked more ridiculous thanks to the new head of hair he appeared to have had sprayed on, making him resemble a haggard human Action Man

Whether the star of the show was meant to be such an unbearably self-centred twerp or Nesbitt just made him seem that way was hard to say. Probably both

Admittedly the other characters (David, Karen, Pete, and Jenny) were still in his thrall even after all these years and despite him living abroad.

‘The last 14 years I’ve lived all over the world: Hong Kong, Dubai, Seattle, now here in Singapore,’ we saw him telling some poor stranger/commuter on the bus. 

‘Sounds glamorous eh? But the exotic becomes the mundane, the adventure the daily grind. I want a life where the novelty never wears off.’

‘Why do I always get the nutter?’ the woman muttered.

Adam had flown home to tell his old gang of friends that 14 years after the death of his beloved wife Rachel and a decade of playing the field, he was getting married

The Mancunian who rented Adam her flat on Airbnb had formed an equally low opinion, declaring he sounded like ‘a banker-w*nker’ and ‘a bit of a tosser.’

‘Please find attached my itinerary,’ she quoted. ‘Who speaks like that?’

Who indeed?

Then there was the way Adam treated his son, sticking him in boarding school while he jetted off round the world.

He hadn’t even told Matthew he was getting married, choosing to introduce him to Andrea on the touchline while Matthew was playing rugby at school.

Admittedly the other characters (L-R Jenny, Pete, Karen and David) were still in his thrall even after all these years and despite him living abroad

No wonder the boy insisted he wouldn’t be attending because he was performing as Bill Sykes’ girlfriend Nancy in the school play. (It was a boys’ school.)

‘It’s a good part. I get to die,’ he argued.

‘It’s my wedding ! It’s a big thing for me !’ protested Adam.

‘Well it isn’t for me !’

When his son stormed off, Adam threatened to stop paying the school fees. 

There was the way Adam treated his son, sticking him in boarding school while he jetted off round the world

Very mature... 

Luckily this was all balanced out because we were meant to feel sorry for him – because he was still traumatised by the death of his first wife Rachel at the end of the fifth series.

He had panic attacks when he heard the name ‘Rachel’ or thought he saw her face and seemed to crowbar her and her demise into the conversation in a manner that was almost creepy.

‘I was just thinking about my first wife...’ Adam mentioned to his landlady, who he had only just met.

‘Do you know what they all had in common?’ he explained of his previous girlfriends. ‘None of them were Rachel.  

He hadn’t even told Matthew he was getting married, choosing to introduce him to Andrea on the touchline while Matthew was playing rugby at school

'None of them came close. But Angela... You’ll see when you meet her. 

'Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. But while it does I’ll feel alive and after Rachel I never thought I would again.’

‘Can you just move on?!’ you felt like saying but he was obsessed.

‘I wish your mum could see you now,’ Adam told Matthew later, when they had mysteriously bonded after all. ‘I think of her every day you know - still miss her. She was magnificent.’

The others couldn’t forget Rachel either. 

Luckily this was all balanced out because we were meant to feel sorry for Adam – because he was still traumatised by the death of his first wife Rachel at the end of the fifth series

‘Every time I see you I see your mum!’ Karen gushed to Rachel and Adam’s son Matthew – a greeting guaranteed to make any teenage boy uncomfortable or upset. 

Karen even went as far as objecting to the wedding: ‘Don’t you think Rachel would want us to say something?’

‘You know deep inside that Rachel wouldn’t give this marriage her blessing,’ Jenny concurred.

Yes inevitably (understandably) David (Robert Bathhurst), Karen (Hermione Norris), Pete (John Thomson), and Jenny (Fay Ripley) had their doubts about Adam marrying Angela. 

He had panic attacks when he heard the name ‘Rachel’ or thought he saw her face and seemed to crowbar her and her demise into the conversation in a manner that was almost creepy

‘He is making a terrible mistake and he knows it,’ Jenny said, several times. 

Eventually outside the church before he was about to get married, even Adam asked Pete: ‘Do you think Jenny might be right - that my sub-conscious knows that the wedding is wrong?’

Make your mind up...

It was a shame the plot was all about Adam and James Nesbitt, even though he was clearly the main character and now the biggest actor.

The others were so much warmer and more human. Cold Feet could not only have returned without Adam but arguably have been better. 

‘Every time I see you I see your mum!’ Karen gushed to Rachel and Adam’s son Matthew – a greeting guaranteed to make any teenage boy uncomfortable or upset

Thompson and Ripley were particularly convincing as Pete and Jenny – the couple who had hit on such hard times when he had been laid off that he had two jobs just to get by. 

David and Karen were divorced and more successful but their lives were appealingly empty – the most obvious symbols of where the ‘30 Something’ generation of the 90s and the Blair era was now.

‘I am not happy,’ announced David dolefully. ‘I have moments but that’s all they are. Little fleeting glimpses. Maybe in middle age that’s the most we can hope for.’ 

It was a shame the plot was all about Adam and James Nesbitt, even though he was clearly the main character and now the biggest actor

‘I miss my future being ahead of me,’ sighed Pete feeling washed up at 50.

‘I miss... Karen,’ David returned. 

‘Great stag do!’ cried Adam with a hollow cheer, turning attention back to himself.

Even the way the first of the eight episodes ended up with great pathos made him seem weak. We learnt that Matthew had tearfully confided in Karen he was about to be expelled from school for smoking weed and was being bullied.

‘I don’t have any friends. I don’t fit in. I never have. I’ve always hated it!’ he cried. 

The others were so much warmer and more human. Cold Feet could not only have returned without Adam but arguably have been better

Karen chose to tell Adam just as he was about to get married, dragging him outside and informing him his son was ‘miserable. He’s a lost soul. Your son desperately needs his dad.’ 

Earlier, during one of his improbably emotive speeches, Adam had told his son: ‘My greatest regret is you’ve never known what it is to have a family – not properly. 

'I know it can’t be the same but when you come to stay with us in Singapore I want you to feel like you’re coming home.’ 

Thompson and Ripley were particularly convincing as Pete and Jenny – the couple who had hit on such hard times when he had been laid off that he had two jobs just to get by

A bit difficult as he’d never been there but still... 

Now Adam seemed to realise where his real responsibilities lay and as he stood at the altar he spun into such a daze of indecision (choosing between Andrea and Matthew) that he missed the moment he had actually got married anyway.

Maybe this was really why we found the characters in Cold Feet so compelling that we had wanted to see them again after all this time.

Not because we liked them so much but because they were so awful. 

David and Karen were divorced and more successful but their lives were empty – the most obvious symbols of where the ‘30 Something’ generation of the 90s and the Blair era was now