The Most Fertile Man In Ireland

By EWAN McDONALD

Eamonn Manley has what women want: well, many women in the North of Ireland. Until a few weeks ago he was a sad 24-year-old who hated his job in a dating agency, lived with his mum, was too shy to talk to the woman of his dreams and couldn't lose his virginity in ... you finish the sentence.

Thanks to an exhilarating encounter with the local man-eater, Eamonn (Kris Marshall) finds he has a unique talent. He produces, in the words of one character, "the kind of sperm that could fertilise a stone".

Since Ireland's birth rate is decreasing, its men are proving infertile, and the Catholic and Protestant communities are afraid of being outbred by one another, Marshall's knack of making women pregnant at the first attempt means that both sides are quickly demanding his services. At the dating agency they set up a business on his behalf and cannot keep up with the calls.

Enter the usual parade of stage or screen Irishmen: a would-be crooner and drifter who will play some later part in the tale, a cheerful traffic warden who won't give tickets on Friday the 13th, the weirdoes who call the agency.

From Cold Feet, James Nesbitt plays a Protestant paramilitary who threatens his potential victims with old newspaper clippings from the 70s. Sadly for him, the rest of Ireland has moved on. The political awareness of most stretches to whether the portrait over their bed is the Pope or the Queen.

Gormless Eamonn, though, would give it all up for his chance with the quiet girl across the street - in the funeral parlour across the street, actually.

Harmless fun that'll go down well over the holidays when there's not much on TV, but there really isn't enough material here for a full-length movie, especially when the leads stumble into a fairly mushy romance instead of being allowed to go all-out for another Waking Ned Devine.

Rental video, DVD: Out now

*DVD features: Cast and director biographies, motion menus, trailers.