The Book Group

The Book Group
The cast of The Book Group
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Annie Griffin
Starring	Anne Dudek Michelle Gomez James Lance Rory McCann Saskia Mulder Bonnie Engstrom
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	12
Production
Running time	approx 23 minutes
Release
Original network	Channel 4
Original release	12 April 2002 – 28 February 2003

The Book Group is a British comedy drama that was broadcast on Channel 4 between 2002 and 2003 and ran for two seasons. It was written and directed by the American-born, Glasgow resident Annie Griffin, who also wrote and directed Festival. It was the winner of two BAFTA Scotland awards.

In January 2006, it was announced that screenwriter Andrew Davies would make a feature film adaptation of The Book Group for Film 4, but the project was never started.

The Book Group revolved around the life of American Clare Pettengill (Anne Dudek), who, at the start of the series, had recently arrived in Glasgow, Scotland. She starts up a book club to try to find friends with similar interests. Those whom she encounters are not what she expected; her new group consists of a drug-addled, egotistical postgraduate student (and subsequently his neurotic and ever-worrying brother), an easy-going disabled man who aims to be a writer, three discontented footballers' wives, and a straggler who hides his homosexuality with an obsession for football. All of the members are brought together not so much by the books that they read (if they read the book at all), but by their own longings for companionship, and their ambitions to better their lives.

Reviewing The Book Group for The Guardian, Gareth McLean stated "the acting is as cracking as the script and the production values" and described the show as "a genuine ensemble drama in which everyone plays a vital part".

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Wikipedia