According to The Full Monty’s Steve Huison, never work with children or animals unless they are pigeons.
The Coronation Street actor, 60, is among the original cast members reprising their roles for the much-anticipated TV version of the renowned 1997 film, which also includes Mark Addy and Lesley Sharp.
While the film featured Robert Carlyle’s Gaz rip-off The Chippendales and their efforts to plan a strip show at a small Sheffield club to collect funds for child support, the Disney Plus plot takes up 25 years later.
The Full Monty, like its predecessor, is not afraid of politics, effectively contrasting the friends’ thrumming humanity with the government’s inhumanity, ranging from budget cuts to austerity.
Of course, there is mayhem and wacky plots, most notably when Steve’s character Lomper tries to buy an expensive pigeon in the expectation that it can produce progeny in order to preserve his café.
However, having one of your most notable co-stars as a, well, pigeon was not the disaster you might expect, with Steve telling Metro.co.uk ahead of the series’ premiere that ‘they were wonderful.’
The Dinnerladies star also said that he took his sequel preparations extremely seriously, including contacting pigeon fanciers to get the lowdown.
Steve explained: ‘Oh, the pigeons were great. They’re very well trained. They’re not like your feral pigeons. You can it sit down and say, “Stay there” and it stays. Or you can release it and it goes straight back into its basket. They were they were great. I got quite attached to them.
I spent a bit of time beforehand, I put out on Facebook locally on my local Facebook page: “Are there any pigeon fanciers around that I can spend some time with?”
Bursting into laughter, Mark, who plays Dave and asked: ‘What kind of response did you get?’
Steve joked: ‘I don’t have a telly so I have to fill the time somehow.’
He continued: ‘This chap in Whitby says, “Yeah, come down to my loft.” And I went and spent time with him we talked pigeons.
‘They’re quite a special breed – not the pigeons – the fanciers. You know that their lives are devoted to these things, and they love them like anybody else loves their pet.
‘And so, you know, I just transferred that and watched him and watched all the other pigeon fanciers how they are with them and transferred that [onto my performance]. You know that he cares about them and, and there was so easy to work with really.’
The film The Full Monty received critical praise, winning an Oscar for best original musical or comedic score and being nominated for three others, including best picture and best director.
Despite a budget of under £2.8 million, it was the highest-grossing film in the UK for a period before being outsold by Titanic.
The Full Monty premieres on Disney Plus on Wednesday.
