Born Romantic: [DVD] by Craig Ferguson

Born Romantic is a second slice of what David (This Year's Love) Kane does best: a quirky picture of contemporary London with young and variously screwed-up protagonists getting a second chance at love. This time, the premise is that there is a salsa club somewhere in East London where three boys meet three girls and things go other than smoothly until they actually take the trouble to learn to dance--and in case we didn't guess the metaphoric point of this, Olivia Williams' cold control freak lays it out for Craig Ferguson's Dean Martin obsessed retro-lounge singer at an early stage. The other central characters are Jane Horrocks as a party girl who is not exactly keen to pick up again with David Morissey, the man who jilted her years earlier and who has now come to London to make amends; and Jimi Mistry as an incompetent thief who falls for a neurotic grave-tender. Adrian Lester is the widower mini-cab driver who listens to all six moan about each other and dispenses wisdom on a regular basis; back at the cab office, Ian Hart rants misogynistically until Kenneth Cranham tells him he is wrong. The stylised and schematic script is redeemed by loud La tin music and an affection for these characters' quirks. On the DVD: The DVD is generously filled with deleted scenes, the trailer and extended interviews with Kane and most of the stars: Horrocks and Williams in particular talk intelligently about the challenges and advantages of working as part of an ensemble cast. The recorded sound is just good enough to give the dance-club scenes a real energy. --Roz Kaveney