Cold Feet

The series began as a 1997 one-off Comedy Premiere pilot which received only 3.5 million viewers and little critical attention when first broadcast in Britain, but ITV entered it as its comedy submission at the Montreux Television Festival, where it won the Silver Rose for Humour and the top prize, the Rose d'Or.

A full series was only commissioned after David Liddiment became ITV's director of programming in August 1997, months after the acclaimed pilot had otherwise failed to secure a follow-up.

Hermione Norris originally auditioned for the role of Rachel but was cast as Karen instead because the character better suited her social class, while Fay Ripley also thought she was auditioning for Rachel but ended up playing the very English Jenny despite having to put on an accent.

James Nesbitt got his audition for Adam through a mutual friend of pilot director Declan Lowney and chose to read the part in his natural Northern Irish accent, wanting to play a contemporary Northern Irish character unconnected to the Troubles.

Kimberley Joseph, who played Jo Ellison, was based in Los Angeles and had been out of work for 18 months before her audition; she moved to Manchester and began read-throughs with the cast just two weeks later.

Helen Baxendale's real-life pregnancy during series 4 forced the writers to abandon the planned storyline of Rachel being infertile and rewrite the rest of the series accordingly.

For the series 3 stag-weekend episode, James Nesbitt suggested filming in Belfast and Portrush near where he grew up; local businesses were so keen to promote the area that they waived their usual fees, and the location manager spent only £20 instead of the typical £3,000 for a shoot of that length.

The series 4 finale was shot over 18 days in October 2001 in Sydney, Australia, with the whole main cast except the pregnant Helen Baxendale, after producers pitched the idea at the Screen Producers Association of Australia conference.

A computer-generated dream sequence in series 2 depicting Adam being chased by a giant testicle drew mixed reactions, with actor Robert Bathurst openly criticizing it as a 'lousy prop' with 'awful graphics' that went on far too long.

Producer Christine Langan chose Space's 'Female of the Species' as the show's theme song after hearing it on The Chart Show during the pilot's production; positive press reaction to the show's use of 1980s pop songs in a series 2 reunion scene led to a previously shelved soundtrack album being released.

Critics Germaine Greer and Tony Parsons were harshly critical of James Nesbitt's performance on The Late Review, with Parsons saying he wished Nesbitt's character had actually died falling from a scissor lift in the opening scene.