teachermarkthailand

A young Dennis Waterman overacts his way through a silly 'story' revolving around a socially awkward man and his mannequin fantasy.

Michael Hough is excellent as a lecherous married man. Carole Linley is lovely to look at. The drunk and horny old landlady provides the clownish comic relief. Even a stupid police detective is thrown in for good measure.

But that's all you get. A couple of outside shots of London are nostalgic. But the farcical and exaggerated screenplay, acting and characters bring it all down.

It's absurdly contrived and forgettable nonsense.

This was the tenth entry in the unremarkable 'Journey To The Unknown' anthologyseries.

But this series did inspire much better anthology series' later, such as 'Thriller', 'Armchair Theatre' & 'Tales Of The Unexpected', etc.

The lovely (and rather naughty) Lysette Anthony, Peter Cook, Trevor Howard and others dance attendance to the chemical comedy perfection of Michael Caine and Sir Ben Kingsley.

These two legends are at their deadpan finest as they play off each other in this wonderful spoof of Sherlock Holmes.

The cast is excellent, the screenplay is literal genius and the sets, direction and flow make this movie a comedy great.

When this film was released its reception was rather luke warm and since then it has since been largely forgotten about.

That's a shame, as this will have you smiling and laughing out loud for its entire runtime.

Caine and Kingsley are comedy gold.

A superior cast of well known British acting talent makes this just about worth your time. For most of us of a certain age, the main draw will be driven by nostalgia.

A rector (former CID) investigates strange goings on at his village church.

The six parter is played out slowly and methodically as if made for children... but if it was aimed at kids why aren't there any kids featured in important speaking roles and why do almost all the expositional scenes happen in the pub?

The biggest letdown, however, is the unbearable dialogues between the players. Nobody talks like this and nobody ever did. Every delivery is aimed at the audience and not between the actors.

Nonetheless, it's still a rather pleasant drift down memory lane, back to a time when TV drama without the melodrama was still a thing!