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The Van is based on the third and final part of the writer Roddy Doyle's trilogy about the people of Barrytown, the imaginary Dublin suburb we have already visited in The Commitments and The Snapper. The film opens just before 1990, with high unemployment and hard times in the area. But one thing cheers everyone up; the Irish football team has qualified for the World Cup in Italy. If the earlier parts of the trilogy concentrated mostly on the lives of the youngsters, in this one it is the turn of the parents to step forward. Bimbo loses his job at the bakery and begins to spend too much time at the pub, just like his best mate, Larry. Bimbo decides to pull himself together and even contemplates taking a job at a hamburger restaurant to provide for his family. But then he hears about an old van and comes up with the perfect solution; a mobile fast-food joint. No sooner said than done, he buys the wreck, employs his mate Larry and with the kind help of members of his family he has soon started business. When Ireland are playing their World Cup matches no-one has time to make dinner, and outside the pubs where people are watching the matches they do good business. It goes so well that they can soon afford a motor for the van. There are of course a few mishaps; a nappy accidentally gets dipped in batter and served as a fish-sandwich and they have to deal with both stubborn health inspectors and disappointed football fans. Despite business being so good, the work and the fact that one of them is boss begin to tax on their friendship and eventually they need to take some drastic measures to save what is really most important in life. It ought to be said that The Van is not about the same family as in the earlier parts, which is an easy mistake to make when Colm Meaney appears as father in all three films. ''I didn't plan on writing a trilogy'', Roddy Doyle says, ''I just stopped after the third and it became a trilogy. So I never felt obliged to follow up the earlier story in any way. When I wrote the script to The Snapper and The Van I changed the name and the shape of the family to try and see it with new eyes. I was never worried that The Van would be seen as a sequel to The Snapper because it's a completely different story.'' J P