I haven’t used this pun yet this year and even though it’s taken me right up to the last few minutes of possible deployment, I am glad I kept my powder dry – because Men Up is definitely this year’s Christmas cracker. The 90-minute tale of the first trial (in Morriston Hospital, Swansea, in 1994) of the drug that would become Viagra, is short, sweet and altogether lovely. Though it never loses its twinkle, it plays the matter straight and – while the characters may joke about their situations – never for laughs. Tonally, it’s a masterpiece by writer Matthew Barry and director Ashley Way that never undercuts or overeggs a moment.
The story coheres round a handful of men who, after trying the various treatments on offer in the early 90s for their erectile dysfunction (penis injections, inflatable rods, a literal pump in the scrotum, pellets up the urethra), leap at the chance to try a potential cure in pill form. Soon Meurig (Iwan Rheon), whose failure to thrive is a consequence of his diabetes, though his wife (Alexandra Roach) fears it is a reaction to her double mastectomy after breast cancer, and his fellow sufferers find themselves hooked up to “strain gauges”, popping pills, watching porn and waiting for magic to happen. For most, eventually, it does. For others, the disappointment threatens to overwhelm everything.
