Tontine, Treasure & Topaz

The Wrong Box is a farcical little gem about an extended family vying for the contents of a large tontine adapted from a novel by RLS. Set in Victorian England it sports a stunning cast including Mills, Richardson, Caine, Pete & Dud, Rossiter, Sellers and Wilfred Lawson it's a classic bit of 60's fun. Directed by Bryan Forbes who apparently directed the excellent Seance on a Wet Afternoon & Stepford Wives mmm must look into some of his other stuff.

Yellowbeard is another British ensemble comedy but this time from the 80's and not quite as funny as it should've especially as it's bedecked with Chapman, Idle, Cleese, Cheech & Chong, Feldman, Cook etc etc. It's a tale of pirates and treasure on the high seas and it romps along and there's some great lines but the actually funny bits are outweighed by cheap gags and plain duds - still I'd rather watch it again than any of the POTC movies.



The Great McGonagall is Spike Milligan's biopic of the awful Dundonian poet William Topaz McGonagall. As weird and surreal as you'd expect from something tumbled from the mind of Milligan there's dream sequences, meta-performances, out-takes & fourth wall breaking along with plenty of wit, smut, toilet humour & terrible verse. I'm particularly fond of Sellers' cameo as jazz piano playing Queen Victoria.