London is gangsters (Lock, Stock...,) Manchester is clubbing legend (24 Hour Party People) and Liverpool is decay and despair (51st State, My Kingdom).

Each major English city seems to relish being strait-jacketed into a particular type of movie genre and appears happy to stick with it.

Now Newcastle enters the fray with...a lukewarm romantic comedy that shouldn't really have been allowed any further south than Scotch Corner.

Stevie (Waddell) is the pregnant wife of Italian Toon striker Sonny (Jonathan Cake). Neil (Roxburgh) is a hen-pecked dreamer whose partner has organised a child adoption.

On the day he comes to deliver her brand new Tongue and Groovy kitchen it's love at first sight...but is it too late?

Can Stevie see the light and ditch her fickle Italian stallion? Can Neil seize the initiative and break away from the humourless Jenny (Aisling O'Sullivan)?

By the time some sort of decision has been reached, you don't really care, as they don't seem a romantic proposition in the slightest.

In fact, the most heartwarming thing about this tepid rom-com is the soaring outline of the Tyne Bridge against a glorious sunset.

On the plus side, Australian Roxburgh lightly handles the underwritten part of the leading man and has the Geordie accent cracked.

Kensit, as the slapper pal of Stevie, also has the dialect down pat. Unfortunately, the accent in question is Welsh.

Waddell is a major disappointment - never winning the sympathy and over-acting as if to compensate for her underweight role.

Air pops up as a brainless bimbo ('twas ever thus) while Neil's slovenly pal Stan (Michael Hodgson) has been dragged out of central casting's saloon bar.

It may not be the one...but it is the only film in recent memory to use Newcastle as a backdrop. A wasted opportunity.

Tim Evans