About May Contain Nuts
School can be tough these days; bullying, back-stabbing, competing and cheating... and that's just the parents!
May Contain Nuts is a two-part comedy drama for ITV1 starring Shirley Henderson, Darren Boyd, Elizabeth Berrington, and Sophie Thompson. This adaptation of John O'Farrell's best-selling novel is created by multi-award winning Mark Burton (Wallace & Gromit, Madagascar, Chicken Run).
The plot starts when Alice and David Chaplin move with their three young children to a safe, leafy, gated community in South West London. Within minutes of meeting their new neighbours - uber yummy mummy Ffion and her acerbic but emasculated husband Philip - they're catapulted into a world where parental anxiety about their children's education has reached fever pitch and where parents will stop at nothing to ensure their child gets a place at the best school. Even if this means getting a job as the school secretary, as fellow neurotic mum Sarah secretly does, when she realises her daughter has no hope of passing the entrance exam to prestigious Chelsea College for Girls.
In a desperate effort to ensure their kids don't get left behind, Alice and David panic and start their children on a regime of intensive tutoring, healthy eating and a relentless schedule of extra-curricular activities. But when daughter, Molly still fails the mock exam, Alice resorts to extreme measures - namely dressing up as her own 11 year old daughter and taking the entrance exam in her place!
Further casting includes: Mona Hammond, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Ian Lindsay, and Justin Edwards.
Paul Jackson, ITV's director of Comedy and Entertainment describes the show as "a story of our times, a fun look at pushy mothers and the problems of competitive parenting. I loved John O'Farrell's book when I first read it and I loved Mark Burton's script when I read that."
Producer Lucy Robinson adds: "Every parent worries about their children's education, it's a national obsession. With parents moving house to try to get into the right catchment area, financially bankrupting themselves to pay exorbitant school fees or even finding 'God' in the hope of getting their child into a faith school, it's also a subject that's ripe for satire. We're not making a judgment on any educational system, but we are pointing out that social pressure, fear and blind panic aren't the best basis for choosing a school for your child".