The National Health Service (the British public health system) is ferociously savaged in this black comedy set in a rundown, poorly-equipped, under-funded Victorian London hospital filled with wacky staff members and patients. Much of the film concentrates on six patients in a men’s ward.
The film also includes a satire-within-a-satire, with Nurse Norton’s Affair – a send-up of daytime TV hospital soap operas, which is showing on the ward televisions.
The main cast members play dual roles – one as work-weary hospital staff in real life and one as glamorised versions of the same characters in the soap, where the nurses are cool and crisp and mood music ushers the surgeons into the operating theatre.
The contrast between the fantasy soap and the reality of a grim 1970s NHS hospital is skilfully done.
Praiseworthy performances come from Jim Dale as an outwardly cheery orderly, Colin Blakely as a lugubrious alcoholic, and Donald Sinden as a consultant pompously chuntering through the jungle that his practice has become.
The film was developed from a 1969 play by Peter Nichols.
Nurse Sweet/Nurse Betty Martin
Lynn Redgrave Edward Loach
Colin Blakely Sister McFee/Sister Mary MacArthur
Eleanor Bron Mr Carr/Senior Surgeon Boyd
Donald Sinden Barnet/Dr Neil Boyd
Jim Dale Foster
Bob Hoskins Mackie
David Hutcheson Rees
Mervyn Johns Flegg
Bert Palmer Ash
Clive Swift Dr Bird
Gillian Barge Chaplain
George ‘Calypso’ Browne Lady Visitor
Patience Collier Nurse Lake
Jumoke Debayo Tyler
Robert Gillespie Kenny
John Hamill Matron
Maureen Pryor Nurse Powell/Cleo Norton
Sheila Scott Wilkinson Leyland/Monk
Neville Aurelius Les
Don Hawkins Student Doctor
James Hazeldine Mortuary Attendant
Richie Stewart Michael
Graham Weston Hospital radio announcer
Dandy Nichols
Director
Jack Gold
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