Reading must be one scary place; what other reason could Columbia Pictures have for not releasing Ricky Gervais’ and Stephen Merchant’s first feature they’ve directed together, in US cinemas? Whatever the reason, it certainly doesn’t deserve to be treated with the contempt that usually goes with straight-to-DVD releases.

Unfortunately, it didn’t do that well at the UK box office either; it took just over a million pounds for its entire theatrical run in the UK. When you consider a film like the recent Piranha took more than that in its first weekend of release in the UK, it doesn’t bode well.

It’s no surprise then that both Gervais and Merchant have been promoting the hell out of its DVD/Blu-ray release with such unprecedented enthusiasm; you wouldn’t normally see them appear on the likes of Alan Carr’s chat show to promote a DVD, that’s for sure.

They’ve got good reason to be plugging it so hard too: not only does it cement their relationship as a creative force, but they’ve produced a period film with all the trimmings.

The swinging sixties was a concept Great Britain could get right behind. Unfortunately the seventies had no such luck. It was a decade that often felt as if it was at odds with itself; it was if it were the naughty sibling of the sixties that everyone chose to ignore, because let’s face it, it wasn’t nearly as attractive. And Reading was the big, ugly brown jumper that the seventies happened to be wearing.

Three young friends living the Reading dream during this transitional decade are Freddie (Christian Cooke), Bruce (Tom Hughes) and Snork (Jack Doolan). Freddie just got a job working for a life assurance company, whilst Bruce works in a factory and Snork is the train announcer at Cemetery Junction station.

They’re all happy being small fry in the fish bowl that is Reading. That changes however, when Freddie bumps into an old school friend Julie (Felicity Jones), who has clearly done a lot of growing up since he last saw her. It turns out that not only is she dating one of his work colleagues, but her dad (Ralph Fiennes) is also his new boss.

With her eye for the exotic, Julie opens up a whole new world to Freddie. The problem is, his mates are reluctant to accept a world outside of Reading. But as they all discover, life has a habit of giving you a hard push, regardless of whether you’re ready for it or not.

After Gervais dabbled with Hollywood with his two high concept, low-on-laughs features (Ghost Town, The Invention of Lying), it’s good to see that he’s gone back to his roots – literally. Not only is the film set in his home town of Reading, but it has the same kind of emotional resonance that can be found in both his and Merchant’s Extras and The Office.

The film also plays to the strengths they ably flexed in their TV shows; the drama is born from a cast with a strong ensemble feel about it; and although it’s not an all-out comedy, the laughs are from their trademarked kitchen sink style of humour – after all, why should kitchen sinks be the drama queens all the time?

And not only does the cast work together, there’s a good mix of old and new talent. The three main young protagonists certainly gel well together on screen, sporting the kind of relationship that you would expect and hope to see replicated off screen too. Gervais and Merchant have also somehow managed to take the relatively attractive Ralph Fiennes, and turned him into the spitting image of Leonard Rossiter’s Reggie Perrin, whilst he proves yet again that he’s a dab hand at playing unlikeable characters. Emily Watson, who plays his long-suffering wife, also does that thing she does so well of being able to reveal so much about her character despite her minimal time on screen.

Youngster Felicity Jones should also get a mention, as her performance as Julie, who acts as a catalysis for all the characters around her, is full of the kind of warmth and pathos that belies her years.

Without any doubt whatsoever though, Anne Reid’s Gran steals not only every scene she’s in, but virtually the entire show.

It’s no surprise that the talent pair managed to nail down strong characters and inject a fair amount of comedy along the way. What is unexpected however is how well they have captured the detail of the period; it absolutely reeks of the seventies and clearly splashed it all over. It all adds up to make Cemetery Junction an evocative Polaroid snapshot of an era, rich in culture and history, that cinema has, rather sadly, seemingly forgotten.