La revue de presse

YOU have to wonder what Ben Elton's wife makes of his latest film.

Ben and Sophie are the proud parents of twins after undergoing IVF treatment.

In Ben Elton's novel Inconceivable, now turned into the movie Maybe Baby, fictional couple Sam and Lucy are also having fertility problems.

Sam (Hugh Laurie) is a BBC producer who is under pressure at work to come up with a script idea, so he uses their IVF treatment as the basis for a film.

Only he doesn't tell Lucy (Joely Richardson), who is, unsurprisingly, furious when she finds out.

We can only hope that Ben wasn't quite so personal when he used his own experiences.

Sam and Lucy are impossibly good-looking, with great jobs and a wonderful house. But all this means nothing to Lucy if she can't have children.

Maybe Baby is very funny in parts, if overly sentimental in others. The lead actors are good but more comedy is provided by a strong supporting cast, especially Nigel (Matthew McFadyen), an hilariously true-to-life BBC controller.

Then there's Tom Holland as trendy director Ewan Proclaimer, who tries to sell scripts of drug addiction and death as comedies. And James Purefoy is prepared to make fun of his profession as a vain actor.

Brummie actor Adrian Lester is good as always as Sam's BBC friend. Less successful are cameos from Ben's mates Dawn French, Emma Thompson, Joanna Lumley and Rowan Atkinson.