Hoots Mon!

Ramshackle vehicle for the Cheeky Chappie, who used to appear on stage through a trapdoor, 'up from the sewers, like the jokes you're going to get': his act is carefully deodorised here, though he still makes a pretence of keeping a wary eye on the wings in expectation of being hauled off-stage. The excuse for a plot has him get rather more than he bargained for when he accepts a challenge from a rival Scots comedienne (Desmond) to try his Cockney comedy on her native folk. Fast-moving, cheerful and a mite tiresome, it is enlivened by Desmond's impersonations of Miller himself, Syd Walker, Bette Davis and - best of all - a hideously simpering Elisabeth Bergner.