Banging on regardless

Victoria Coren and Charlie Skelton aren't your average pornographers. She's the daughter of humourist Alan; he's the son of a vicar. They're both journalists in their late twenties. But last year, fed up with the implausible skin flicks they sat through while writing a feature for The Erotic Review, the best friends decided to try to make "the greatest porn film ever".

The result was The Naughty Twins, a 21st century chivalric sex quest involving two lusty virgins, an evil uncle, assorted henchmen and every type of intercourse imaginable. It's still awaiting a distributor, but luckily the making of book is already with us.

It takes us on Coren and Skelton's (or Vicky and Charlie as they're called here) journey from The Naughty Twins' conception in Belsize Park ("Perhaps we'd had too much coffee. Perhaps our brains were addled by seeing too many insincere Puerto Rican whores") via the scriptwriting sessions in Vegas, to the troubled shoot in Amsterdam - They stop off en route to interview industry veterans and naive starlets, delving into the seamy world of sexploitation with wit, style and the odd crisis of conscience.

But hasn't TV flogged this territory to death? Didn't Ruby Wax once do something very similar? Are we just being served Louis Theroux's sloppy seconds? That Once More, With Feeling is a book rather than a half-hour show isn't much of an advantage.

It can be quite a slog getting through page-upon-page of the memories of some washed-up old hunk with just the occasional flash of narrative, like "Charlie blushed", to break things up.

At times it feels dangerously close to an extended feature. At other times you start wondering whether they made the movie in order to write the book.

For whatever Vicky and Charlie may say about wanting to make a porno with character motivation, "a dynamic, an emotional wide shot", The Naughty Twins was made primarily for a laugh. It's hard to imagine regular porn viewers really enjoying a Dutch Brian Blessed lookalike shouting "Feed the crocodiles! Water my cactus! Torture that nun! And bring me some biscuits! Hobnobs, Leslie, Hobnobs!" in broken English while humping a character named Dr Tinkle in tribute to Kenneth Williams. (Each to their own, though.) So if the film is to amuse themselves, who is the book for? Not porn fans, certainly. And not film buffs - they'll be too appalled by Vicky and Charlie's gleeful amateurism.

The "investigative journalism" passages will annoy anyone just out for a fun read, and the froth will incense those with a drum to bang. Both writers are gifted and prolific, but do they have many devoted fans? And will many of these last the distance? It's entertaining but lengthy stuff, and not easy to read on a crowded Tube.

They have really written it for each other. Throughout, Once More, With Feeling flirts with the idea that the authors might still fancy each other - they got together briefly at university but it didn't go anywhere. At one point Ronnie, who plays the troubled priest in The Naughty Twins, thinks that the pair are lovers.

He's put straight, but Vicky asks whether he assumed that "this was just our own sophisticated private sex game". He did, and he's right.