Mother’s Pride (Nick Moorcroft, 2026)

A couple of years ago, Nick Moorcroft made a film based on a Cornish shanty group who had a hit record and now he mines reality again for a combination of a failing pub bought out by its customers and the brewpub whose Bishop Nick Ridley’s Rite won a silver in the Champion Beer of Britain.

This doesn’t put a foot wrong in construction: appealing dysfunctional family, picture postcard village, hissable villain and music to tell you exactly what to feel. The cast includes a range of British comedy actors. All very watchable.

Successful musician Cal (Jonno Davies) returns home to a family pub which is on the skids and risks being bought by local cad and brewery scion Pritchard (Luke Treadaway). The only solution is to start their own microbrewery.

If this had been made sixty years ago by Ealing Studios, it could have been hilarious. As it turns out, this version just falls flat. Dogging and pansexuality are meant to be amusing just because and a sequence about a cause for ADHD is painful and makes no sense in terms of the film. All very cringeworthy.

It’s no Brassed Off (Mark Herman, 1996) and it’s the second film this year in which Martin Clunes is the best thing.