Just to say, I watched all buit the beginning of a movie called Maybe Baby on Monday night, on the telly. Of this, the Radio Times (in the person one Jason Caro) had this to say:

For his debut as writer/directo, Ben Elton tries – and fails – to step into the winning comedy shoes of erstwhile Black Adder partner Richard Curtis (Notting Hill). Revolving around Hugh Laurie and Joely Richardson's attempts to have a child, this clichéd, caricatured and dreadfully acted tale has all the wit, sparkle and profundity of a 1970s Confessions movie.

… which is pretty much what I recall the critics saying when this first came out. But I found it quite entertaining and more than quite involving. In my opinion the problem was not the actors, or the script, but the directing. Time and again, what looks like bad movie acting is actually a bunch of perfectly fine movie actors doing exactly what the director told them to do, and above all doing it more slowly than their instincts would have dictated and than a better director would have demanded. This didn't bowl along with nearly enough zip, and time and again the acting was over-emphatic. But the script was fun, and once you had discounted the slightly leaden style, it was fun to watch. Yet the RT gave it only one star. When I think of the dross that they award two, three and sometimes even four stars to, I think this was overdoing it.

Could the fact that the odd spot of piss was extracted from the BBC by Elton's script be part of the reason for the animus against this movie among those who decide these things? I doubt it, but maybe. Although, it was shown on BBC1.