The Booze Cruise is a feature length comedy drama written for British television on the channel ITV, shown in 2003 and written by Paul Minett & Brian Leveson.
The three episodes have received mixed reviews, with the Radio Times describing it as "like comedy in 1973" and also "you can see each joke a mile off", but generally liking the show.
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A group of men from Kent; Clive (Martin Clunes), Rob (Neil Pearson), Dave (Mark Benton), Maurice (Brian Murphy) and Daniel (Ben Whishaw) - went on a booze cruise to France, with mixed success and many mishaps along the way. The events involving their wives and families back home also formed a large part of the plot.
Two follow-up episodes were also created by Minett & Leveson, featuring the same characters, with the exception of Clive, who didn't appear in either sequel owing to Martin Clunes's Doc Martin commitments . Daniel was played by Tom Bennett, and only appeared in The Booze Cruise II, while Amanda Abbington took on the role of Leone.
In this episode the same characters went on a treasure hunt, and ended up with their car being washed out to sea on a beach. Marcus (a businessman who deals with Dave's company) first appeared in this episode.
The characters went to Yorkshire for a variety of reasons including scattering the ashes of Maurice's mother-in-law on the Moors. In this episode both Rob's estranged wife (Leone) and his new girlfriend were in the same car, causing much friction. The Booze Cruise III won the Royal Television Society Award North for Best Network Drama.