Film

Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1980)

Director: Steve Roberts

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Sir Henry's disgusting ancestral home has spawned an industry: a Radio 4 sketch, Peel-show episodes, Bonzo track, complete album, stage readings. His motto is 'Omnes Blotto'; his home is Knebworth outside, and a dusty heap of rotten food, excrement, and empty bottles within. Vivian Stanshall has pieced together a shambolic poem, stuffed with extraordinary one-liners, with the sad, manic skeleton necessary to all great comedy; a satire tempered with nostalgia. Fixing this down visually is ultimately as self-defeating as filming a Goon Show: Steve Roberts has opted for a grainy monochrome, and has fortunately resisted the temptation to 'explain'. With the surprising exception of Denise Coffey, the actors quite correctly play the farrago dead straight: Trevor Howard, in particular, relishes the role of Sir Henry as if shooting for an Oscar. Too many favourite album lines are missing to prevent a little disappointment, and the edifice gets close to collapse on occasions, but this is one film it would have been impossible to get irrefutably 'right'.

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