The Baker

Playing like a would-be comic version of ‘I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead’, this gently likeable, undemanding and silly Lottery-funded – and clearly TV-bound – comedy-drama sees Damian Lewis (the writer-director’s older brother) as the hitman hiding out in a Welsh village hoping for ‘a second chance’ baking cakes with amateur vet Kate Ashfield.

High-points include character actor Steve Spiers, as a landlord and re-enactment enthusiast, singing ‘Volare’ at a funeral; low-points, Lewis and Ashfield making out naked in a shower of flour and ketchup. In what you might call a postmodern awareness of Welsh and communitarian Brit-com clichés, director Gareth Lewis plays it all just this side of ‘Comic Strip’ pastiche but goes for an orthodox heart-warmer finale rather than a spoof ‘Dai of the Dead’ hail of bullets.

Michael Gambon, in a cameo gives a masterclass in how not to take things too seriously, a lead that most of the players dutifully follow.