ANYONE familiar with the BBC quiz show University Challenge . . . which pitched college against college and was hosted for years by Bamber Gascoigne . . . will remember how the catchphrase "starter for 10" triggered each round. Whoever got the 'starter' right won 10 points and a chance to answer more questions without being interrupted. The game provides a neat framework for David Nicholls's novel . . . set in the 1980s and now adapted by him for the screen . . . about a bright working-class grammar-school boy, Brian (James McAvoy), who finds out the hard way that in life playing by the rules doesn't necessarily win you anything. When he falls for beautiful upper-crust Alice (Alice Eve) at Bristol University . . . they're on the team that qualifies for University Challenge . . .

and is invited to spend a weekend with her seemingly liberal parents Charles Dance and Lindsay Duncan, who think nothing of wandering about nude, it's made crushingly clear to him that any thought of becoming part of their privileged world is a non-starter no matter how many right answers he knows.

McAvoy has an engaging ability . . . whether as the faun in The Chronicle of Narnia or the young doctor who wins the confidence of the dictator Idi Amin in soon-to-be-seen The Last King of Scotland . . . to be boyishly innocent and guiltily complicit all in the same smile. It allows him to get away with some cringingly naff moments while remaining always likable.

You appreciate why his chum (Dominic Cooper) accuses him of becoming a "poncey wanker" at university. You even forgive him for being embarrassed on visits to his mum (Catherine Tate) and her tradesman lover.

Much of the bitter-sweet fun of Starter For Ten is waiting for him to realise Alice is simply toying with him until someone better comes along, while smart but shy Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), forever to the fore at Ban The Bomb protests, probably understands him better than he understands himself . . . and maybe loves him too. Cleverly packaged by Tom Hanks and Sam Mendes . . . buddies since The Road To Perdition . . . it all sorts itself out after a simulated University Challenge that has the gauche tension of the real thing.