Pilot (Cold Feet)

Cold Feet
Promotional material
Genre	Comedy-drama
Written by	Mike Bullen
Directed by	Declan Lowney
Starring	James Nesbitt Helen Baxendale John Thomson Fay Ripley Hermione Norris Robert Bathurst
Composer(s)	The Other Two
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	1
Production
Executive producer(s)	Andy Harries
Producer(s)	Christine Langan
Running time	52 minutes
Production company(s)	Granada Television
Release
Original network	ITV
Original release	30 March 1997 (1997-03-30)
Chronology
Followed by	Cold Feet (1998–2016)

Cold Feet is a British television pilot directed by Declan Lowney. It stars James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale as Adam and Rachel, a couple who meet and fall in love, only for the relationship to break down when he gets cold feet. John Thomson, Fay Ripley, Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst appear in supporting roles. The programme was written by Mike Bullen, a BBC radio producer with little screenwriting experience, who was tasked with creating a one-off television production that would appeal to middle-class television audiences, who the executive producer Andy Harries believed were underepresented on British television.

After filming was completed in 1996 the commissioning network ITV shelved it for a year. It was eventually scheduled for broadcast on the evening of 30 March 1997, as part of the network's Comedy Premieres strand, but overrunning sports coverage delayed it for an hour. Ratings were low and critical reviews were minimal, but positive; critics enjoyed the comedy drama format and praised the writing and performances of the leads. Harries entered Cold Feet in the Montreux Television Festival, where it was awarded the Rose d'Or, the festival's top prize, resulting in ITV quickly scheduling a repeat broadcast. At the end of the year it won the award for Best Comedy Drama (ITV) at the British Comedy Awards and the incoming director of channels ordered a full series, which ran for five successful years from 1998 to 2003.

Adam Williams (James Nesbitt) breaks up with another in a long line of girlfriends and spends the evening at the pub with his friend Pete Gifford (John Thomson). Pete arrives home late, which annoys his wife Jenny (Fay Ripley), who calculated that night to be the best time for them to conceive a child. She becomes even more frustrated when she sees Pete has brought Adam back; he missed his last bus home. Rachel Bradley's (Helen Baxendale) boyfriend Simon Atkinson (Stephen Mapes) breaks up with her over dinner after taking a job in Hong Kong. Rachel angrily leaves the restaurant and telephones her friend Karen Marsden (Hermione Norris), who has just asked her husband David (Robert Bathurst) if they can get a nanny to take care of their son Josh.