Fit

‘Fit’ began as a Stonewall-backed theatre project that toured schools, playing to 20,000 people before being developed as a film. Focusing on experience of and attitudes towards alternative sexuality among the members of a sixth-form college drama class, it’s a commendable and engaging piece that struggles to satisfy in a feature format.

‘Fit’ comprises seven DVD- and web-friendly 15-minute segments: an introductory sequence in which actor-director Rikki Beadle Blair’s substitute drama teacher meets his new charges and chapters focusing on half a dozen of them, from closeted bullies to effeminate straight boys. A couple of stilted encounters notwithstanding, the picture avoids preachy didacticism, presenting an impressive range of credible characters undergoing eye-opening experiences. As a feature drama, however, it founders: there are connections between the individuals’ stories but they remain segmented with no sense of unifying narrative.

This doesn't really belong in the cinema but thanks to strong characterisations that cannily avoid – or invert – stereotype, there’s every chance that, on smaller screens, it will build on its live-performance predecessor’s success in challenging bigotry.