THE lesson to be learnt at this School for Seduction is that good ideas don't necessarily turn into great films. Writer (with Martin Herron) and director Sue Heel has fashioned a lively comic battle of the sexes that never quite delivers as much as promised.

There is only so much you can take, and remain interested in, of women walking around a room seductively and stroking objects in a suggestive way.

These seem to be the main tips passed on by sexy Italian Sophia (Kelly Brook) at the School for Seduction classes she organises in Newcastle. She, of course, has a secret and one that it's not hard to guess, although I won't spoil it for you here.

Before all is revealed, she passes on handy seduction techniques to dissatisfied females including deputy hotel manager Clare (Dervla Kirwin), whose husband (Neil Stuke) is more interested in his car than his wife; chippie Irene (Margi Clarke) whose husband (Tim Healy) prefers battered haddock to his missus; single mum Kelly (Emily Woof), trying to balance motherhood and two jobs; and mouthy Geordie Donna (newcomer Jessica Johnson).

There's also a drag queen Toni (Ben Porter), who needs help in being a girl.

Just as it's taken for granted that foreigners are far more knowing in the ways of sex and love than we Brits, so all the men are painted as male chauvinist pigs of one sort or another without an understanding bone in their bodies.

Heel tries to pack so much into one feature film that I couldn't help feeling it would have made a better TV series, giving more time to expand and explore the individual stories of these students trying to come to terms with their roles as wives, mothers and drag queens.

Model-turned-actress Brook is given surprisingly little to do apart from assume an Italian accent and look sexy, which she does well enough. Strong casting ensures that Woof, Kirwan and co give the other women prominent profiles and, for once, the men are reduced to mere sex objects.

york twenty4seven view *****

Updated: 09:30 Friday, December 03, 2004