The Love Child

If Bill Forsyth teamed up with the Comic Strip, the result might be something like this: a determinedly whimsical, slightly-too-surreal look at working-class life on a Lambeth housing estate. Neither quite funny enough for comedy nor realistic enough for satire, but some strong cameos, warmth and wry wit make it enjoyable. Capaldi is a wide-eyed, gangling delight as an orphaned love child of the '60s (his father played with cult rock group the Pink Frogs) who fails to develop the 'bijou little killer streakette' required by his accounting-firm boss, and instead discovers magic 'shrooms and free love with an artist from the local squat. Meanwhile, in an amusing reversal, his dope-smoking gran (Hancock) plans to leave him for a place of her own. Though these two, by sheer force of personality, flesh out their stereotypes, the over-casting of alternative TV comedians (particularly Frost and O'Donnell as bully-boy policemen) was a mistake.