Nesbitt: a real charmer

The actor James Nesbitt and I are discussing charm, its quality and its definition, over a glass of white wine and a couple of Marlboro lights in a supposedly glamorous bar entirely lacking any other customers, a single ashtray or a hint of ambience. Nesbitt hops from one seat to another like musical chairs, then strides off to find something to squash his fag into, then wraps himself around a too-small barstool. You sense he'd be happier down the East Dulwich Tavern, his local, where I spot him a few nights later, though he warms up after a while.

Initially, the subject arises in relation to Nesbitt's character in the ITV series Cold Feet, Adam Williams, whose phenomenal charm is less personality trait than force of nature - though it might equally apply to Jimmy Hands, whom Nesbitt plays in Lucky Break, the film he's here to promote. But Adam and James keep getting mixed up in this conversation, to the extent that neither of us is quite sure who we're talking about.

"People say that a lot of men want to be Adam, and that's possibly because the person who's playing Adam is not a million miles away from them, so he's quite accessible. I'm not drop-dead gorgeous, I'm not made of plastic. I have ... Adam has ... an ease about him that's definitely charming, and a vulnerability about him and an idiocy." A charm with women, for sure.

"The thing is, you don't learn charm. Nor can you analyse it. But it's not a tag that's been applied to me just since Cold Feet."

We have switched from Adam to James Nesbitt again: James flashes that crinkly, wonky, one-eyebrow-raised smile for which Adam is famous and says: "I think, possibly, I was always charming when I was growing up. I'm not necessarily in control of it. I grew up with three older sisters, the only boy and the baby, and I think that's a lot of it: charm comes out of a confidence and ease with women."

Aha. Yes. I can see that. It's also the Irish thing, of course, the thick accent and the lovable roguishness and the "natural" romanticism - a stereotype that Nesbitt quite enjoys, or at least doesn't mind. Certainly he plays it to conspicuous effect in Lucky Break, the second film by director Peter Cattaneo, whose first - you might remember it - was called The Full Monty.

Lucky Break is what's known as a "prison caper", a sort of Chicken Run with people. It owes a basic plot line, the staging of an amateurdramatic musical as cover for an attempted break-out, to both Colditz and The Great Escape. What it isn't is Scum, though there's just enough grit, plus one moment of desperate tragedy, to make prison life vaguely believable.

Nesbitt plays Jimmy Hands, a failed bank robber and chairman of the escape committee, who falls in love with prison psychologist Annabel Sweep (Olivia Williams in a hand-knit cardigan) and is thus presented with several dilemmas relating to the true nature of freedom. If it lacks The Full Monty's essential quirkiness, it treads the same clever line between Ealingesque-romantic comedy and decent modern British drama; a mix of commercial astuteness designed, you presume, to appeal just as much to the Americans as to us.

Nesbitt is forthright on the subject of Cattaneo's talent: "I see no reason why the tag auteur should be attached to people who make films that are completely grim or utterly about grim social issues," he says, briefly serious. "Peter has a great love and understanding of romance and irony and humour. He makes films about the resilient nature of the human spirit, and about its ability to soar at times of adversity." Yes, yes, but is it going to be as successful as The Full Monty? (Lucky Break was jokily subtitled, on the set itself: "Go directly to jail, do not pass go, collect another £200 million.")

"You can't ask me that ... I just don't know. This sounds like faux humility, but look I'm desperate for this movie to succeed, not so I'll get onto the next rung of that never-ending ladder to career Utopia - whatever the f*** that might be - but because it was such an enjoyable job. And for my family, you know."