Summer in February

When British actors play arty-boho types, it almost always looks try-hard. Trouble is, we’ve seen it all before, the skinny dipping and the girls in fishermen’s jumpers with scarves knotted in their hair. This wobbly period drama is based on events between 1912 and 1914 at a Cornish artists’ colony whose residents were the hippies of their day. Dominic Cooper (‘Mamma Mia!’) stars as Alfred James ‘AJ’ Munnings, a bad boy artist embroiled in a love triangle with army officer Gilbert, played by Dan Stevens – cousin Matthew from ‘Downton Abbey’, nice-but-dull in wellies again.

The object of their affections is Florence, played by Emily Browning, who has to do little more than look beautiful and muse-like. Florence, silly thing, says ‘I do’ to the pissed artist. She’s meant to be a troubled soul, but ‘Summer in February’ is not big on internal drama, and there are some hilarious serious bits (one involving a bottle labelled ‘POISON’ – just in case you missed it). With some tinkering, this might just have made a decent Sunday night comfort-telly three-parter.