There is a hard truth at the heart of BBC One’s new drama, Men Up. “Men kill themselves over this,” a doctor solemnly informs a conference of his peers, “and the numbers are astonishing.” He’s talking about erectile dysfunction, the subject of a thousand blue jokes, and a thousand and one late-night commercials on golfing channels. This is the story of a medical innovation that changed the world and gave a generation of men their mojo back.
Swansea, 1994. Against a backdrop of newspapers celebrating Torvill and Dean’s success at the Lillehammer Olympics, a group of Welshmen struggle with impotence. Among them are Meurig (Game of Thrones’s Iwan Rheon), a 40-year-old hospital porter struggling to convince his wife, Ffion (Alexandra Roach), that his bedroom disappointments are unrelated to her double mastectomy. “She thinks it’s all her fault,” he laments, “and it’s not.” But a Pfizer-backed drug trial offers the chance of a miracle respite, both for Meurig and a ragtag cohort of underperforming gentlemen. Among them are Tommy (Paul Rhys), who must hide his sexuality in order to get on the trial, and burly Eddie (Mark Lewis Jones), who cannot be open about his condition. Rounding out the hospital ensemble are widower Colin (Gavin and Stacey’s Steffan Rhodri), repressed accountant Pete (Gavin and Stacey’s Phaldut Sharma), bubbly nurse Moira (Gavin and Stacey’s Joanna Page – in case you’d missed it, this is set in Wales), and Aneurin Barnard as the baby-faced doctor in charge of the study.
