Bring back Richard Curtis, all is forgiven (except Love, Actually, obviously). Because when other people try to make British comedies for American audiences, bad things invariably happen.
And as if we’re incapable of doing it ourselves, here’s Frank Oz – the voice of Miss Piggy and Yoda - to advance the stereotype of ours being a nation of starchy, sweary nincompoops who speak – and live - like the Queen.
It starts promisingly enough, with MacFadyen’s bereaved son Daniel taking delivery of the wrong coffin at the family leafy residence in the Home Counties.
As if he didn’t have worries enough. Money is awfully tight and he is delivering the eulogy when everyone would prefer his carefree brother Robert (Graves) – now a successful novelist in New York - to do it.
Meanwhile, when cousin Martha (Daisy Donovan) picks up her pharmacy student brother Troy (Kris Marshall), she gives her boyfriend Simon (Alan Tudyk) a ‘Valium’ to ease his nerves. But, E-whiz, that’s not Valium!
More trouble is on the way in the form of hypochondriac Howard (Andy Nyman) and his oily pal Justin (Bremner), who is besotted with Martha. But first they have to collect wheelchair-bound grouch Uncle Alfie (Peter Vaughan).
"Dean Craig’s script comes with but one funny set-up… which it flogs to, er, death."
Once everyone is present, the fun begins. Or does it? Sadly, Dean Craig’s script comes with but one funny set-up… which it flogs to, er, death.
Simon’s hallucinatory, butt-naked adventures ensure that Tudyk (
Knocked Up) gets plenty of early laughs, but his drug-addled mugging gradually wears thin and eventually serves only to highlight the lack of decent jokes elsewhere.
His fellow American Peter Dinklage (diminutive star of
The Station Agent and TV’s Nip/Tuck) offers the next-best value as the mysterious guest whose tawdry revelations about the deceased set in motion the bulk of the farce.
But a new low in British talent-wasting is reached when the great Vaughan (as an invalid, remember) is reduced to emptying his bowels on Nyman’s hand… who then splatters the mess all over his face.
Other respected actors deserving of ‘With Sympathy’ cards include Jane Asher as the grieving widow, Peter Egan as Martha and Troy’s uptight father, and Keeley Hawes -the real Mrs MacFadyen - as Daniel’s wife.
As Daniel so succinctly puts it: “This is really, really bad… this is really, really, really bad.”
Talk about a screenwriter digging his own grave…
Elliott Noble
