When I was a teenager I used to play cricket for a junior club side that my late father was the coach of.  I know for a fact that some of the other lads thought I was only being picked because he was the coach,i.e bias. This I hasten to add was complete and utter NONSENSE you understand, I was that good that I could have been the next Sir Ian Botham….HONEST(I’m NOT being honest). Sadly for me though I also had the same mental toughness as “Nervous Nerys” from Only Fools and Horses so I was never destined to make it at a very high level playing sport(don’t it still hurts…..not really). Stay with me with me now after this rather strange opening to a TV review,  because there is a very tenuous link coming up here with the second episode of In The Club…… I promise.

The tenuous link is that one of the things that has irritated me slightly whenever viewing a drama by Kay Mellor is that usually a member of her family pops up in them, usually her daughter actress Gaynor Mellor(or Faye). I must declare here that I have nothing personally against Gaynor Mellor because she is a perfectly good actress in her own right. Nevertheless, her connection and regular appearance in her Mum’s shows really started to grate on me awhile back, so much so I was pretty shocked that she never appeared in the first series of In The Club.  With this in mind then, last Tuesday night I just got settled to watch episode two of In The Club and whose name did I see credited as the writer just before the narrative resumed…..no other than Gaynor Mellor herself(cue me rolling my eyes in frustration……argh).  I was going to see past this though and view it with an open mind I told myself.

Overall, I thought this episode was just OK. Some of it held my attention but I also found some bits of it boring too.  On occasions I found myself drifting off and thinking about other stuff and then switching back on to it.  It was the first time whilst watching it, that I wondered to myself if there were loads of women out there lapping this up unlike me. I felt slightly alienated as a male viewer. I did not hate it but it just felt more like a soap opera at times than a prime time TV drama. i.e content more appealing to women, a very female programme.  Most of the narrative failed to dramatically grip me, even the bits that were clearly supposed too.

This episode was all about surprises.  For example, Rick just back from prison was surprised to find out his wife Dianne had become the Mary Poppins of the north whilst he had been away. Roanna was shocked to find out that her ex husband was capable of being nice to her after all(not sure I bought his new ‘nice personality’ transplant), and Kim was still in shock that she was enjoying sleeping with her hunky man(I bought that bit).  As viewers, I guess the two most surprising bits were Roanna snogging her former nasty ex-husband and midwife Vicky becoming embroiled in a case where she discovered a new Mother had passed away suddenly who was under her care.

Talking of Vicky, I am the only one that finds the disappearance of her fella and father of her new baby a bit hard to believe?  We are supposedly talking here about a clever Consultant Gynecologist fella(Dr Bellingham) who had just become a father, yet we are expected to believe that he’s left his baby and job and gone travelling half way around the world trying to find that woman to whom he married just for the money(when a medical student) so he can get a divorce….then are we?  I think I am right with this storyline and if so then it is about as believable as me saying at the start of this review that I could have been the next Ian Botham.

I am still to be won over or convinced by the new characters Maxine and Shelly, especially the former.  I still do not know enough about them yet to care about them.  I guess in the coming weeks all will be revealed regarding the baby Maxine supposedly had in the toilets, but I do wish their storylines would get a move on.

All in all then a drama still worth sticking with however I do sense my interest in it is waning somewhat.  I need episode three to draw me back in like I once was before, I want to be excited once more about watching IN THE CLUB!! 3/5.