Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 119

British Film Comedy In the New Millennium:
Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, and
G ue s t H ou s e P a r a d i s o
The tradition of British film comedy is a long one. It encompasses the films of
George Formby and The Crazy Gang; The Ealing comedies with Alec Guinness
and Stanley Holloway (among others); the St. Trinians' movies with Alastair Sim,
Terry-Thomas and Joyce Grenfell; the Carry On films with a huge stock company
of players, including Kenneth Williams and Sidney James; the Goons, first on
radio and then in an unmemorable feature film Down A m ong the Z Men (1952, Dir.
Maclean Rogers); M onty Python s Flying Circus, first on television and then in a
series of theatrical features; in addition to such satirical revues as Jonathan Miller’s
B eyond the Fringe, Flanders and Swann’s A t the Drop o f a Hat, and the comic duo
of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, all of whom crossed over into films in one
fashion or another.
There has always been a streak of what Kenneth Williams referred to as “hon
est vulgarity” in the best British film comedies, from the decadent boarding school
presided over by Alastair Sim in drag in The B elles o f St. T tin ia ns (1954, Dir.
Frank Launder), to Kenneth Williams’ fruity impersonation of Julius Caesar in
Carry On Cleo (1965, Dir. Gerald Thomas), introducing himself to the audience
with a wretched cold, and the words, “I do feel queer,” counterbalanced by Sidney
James’ macho cockney Marc Antony as a comic foil. Although British comedy has
always rather strictly divided itself into two disparate groups - one for the “upper
classes,” and one for the common man - it is the ridicule of the very institutions
held so dear by the fading monarchy that is the common thread uniting both schools
of comedic expression.
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore created a sophisticated update of Christophe r
Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus in B eda zzled (1967, Dir. Stanley Donen). The Carry On
gang indulged in single-entendre bathroom humor and hoary music hall sketches
in their more than twenty films. The Pythons kidded Jean Paul Sartre and the Brit
ish monarchy with equal savagery, while never relinquishing their ruling class
roots. Peter Sellers, in a string of brilliant comedies before he became typecast in
the Pink P a n th er series {The Lady Killers [1955, Dir. Alexander Mackendrick],
F m A ll R ight J a ck [1959, Dir. John Boulting], The Wrong A rm o f the Law [1963,
Dir. Cliff Owen]) had arguably more of a common touch in his work. But one
ruling concern unites these differing approaches; the ridicule of the sacred, the
pricking of pomposity. Most importantly, each succeeding series of comedies had
to be more brash than those that preceded it, if only because an ever more cynical