Run For Your Wife (review)

Anyone who has seen the news about Ray Cooney's return to the cinema (his first big screen writing/directing effort since Not Now Comrade in 1976), will know that Run For Wife has hardly broken the box office, and that it has only received a limited screening since its release.

I paid £3 for my 'Silver Screening' ticket & got free coffee and a biscuit included so the cinemas are hardly going to rake it in at this rate!

I'll start by being reasonably fair. The audience I saw the film with enjoyed it, and there were many laughs, gaffaws and an "Oooh" when the late Richard Briers appeared on screen.

However, as anyone would have guessed, the only real pleasure to be gained from Run For Your Wife is the cameo spotting. It's a shame then that too many of these appearances are so fleeting that you will need to watch the film on DVD so that you can pause and rewind it - For example, I saw Katy Manning's name at the end but didn't spot her face in the film.

Christopher Biggins has the best screen presence here, but needs more decent lines.

And there lies the major problem: the actors who really can do comedy don't actually get the opportunity. They're relegated to the role of 'extras' whilst the main parts are given to Danny Dyer and Denise Van Outen who are neither funny nor sympathetic.

Outen delivers the films worst line: "Did you tell that reporter I'd got sexually transmitted spots?! Grrrr you silly sod!!"

As for Dyer, let's say I did not relish the big close-ups of his doughy face with its puffy, unfocused eyes. (At first I thought this was because his character had received a knock to the head - which is the opening gambit of the plot - but, alas this appeared to be his permanent demeanour.

There is one of those credit-sequences at the end that rerun the whole film again in a potted version. It was only here that I noticed Geoffrey Palmer and I think Wanda Ventham (I may be mistaken about the latter).

There was also a post-credit scene, but the projectionist had already turned the house lights up!

When it finally ended some old dear at the back muttered "Has it done now?!"

Pic: Danny Dyer trying to hide the script...

A Fit of the Giggles with Richard III

When I was a kid I got told off for having an uncontrollable fit of the giggles at the Battlefield Visitor Centre, near Bosworth, Leicestershire.

The reason for my mirth was the nightmare scene as enacted by Laurence Olivier in his version of Richard III (1955), which used to be screened in a truncated version in a cinema room at the museum.

In John Ashdown-Hill's book The Last Days of Richard III, he gives an account of the King's last night before battle, and questions the authenticity of reports from the Crowland Chronicle (1486) and Polydore Vergil (early 16th century).

From Vergil:

"yt ys reported that king Rycherd had that night a terrible dreame; for he thowght in his slepe that he saw horrible ymages as yt wer of evell spyrytes haunting evidently abowt him, as yt wer before his eyes, and that they wold not let him rest..." (Quoted in Ashdown-Hill, 2011 , page 71).

Ashdown-Hill argues that this uncomfortable nights sleep could have been the result of a number of things including spending the night in an unfamiliar camp bed, and an attack of the sweating sickness.

Whatever the reason, in his film, Olivier does his utmost to ham his interpretation of the night of 21-22 August 1485 to the nth degree as he tosses and turns in his bed.

Judging by Ashdown-Hill's book, King Dick was not the evil caricature of Shakespeare's play, and as a result, Olivier's smoky bacon-flavoured performance seems even more incongruous.

Looking back 30 years to my giggle-fit at Bosworth I reckon my instincts were right!

Further reading: John Ashdown-Hill, 2011, The Last Days of Richard III, The History Press.