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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1980s
    Movies - 1980s Movies - P 2 Mins Read

    Private Function, A (1984)

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    In post-war Yorkshire, with rationing still very much in force, mild-mannered chiropodist Gilbert Chilvers (Michael Palin) tries to prove his worth to the snobbish locals by kidnapping a pig which is being fattened up for a local banquet to celebrate the 1947 royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Lt. Philip Mountbatten.

    With its gentle, witty portrait of postwar Britain and its sly digs at bourgeois aspirations, this comedy has the stamp of Ealing about it.

    Scripted by Alan Bennett, it is an often hilarious mixture of well-observed social comedy and sometimes laborious earthy humour, much of the latter being inspired by the bodily functions of the pig who has been fed on an ‘austerity diet’ including toenail clippings and ground rat.

    Palin does a nice line in mortified meekness as Gilbert, but he is upstaged by Maggie Smith, as his scheming wife, Joyce, and Liz Smith as Joyce’s hilariously dotty old mum, whose eccentric antics and distracted ramblings provide some of the highlights.

    Gilbert Chilvers
    Michael Palin
    Joyce Chilvers
    Maggie Smith
    Dr Charles Swaby
    Denholm Elliott
    Henry Allardyce
    Richard Griffiths
    Bernard Sutcliff
    Tony Haygarth
    Frank Lockwood
    John Normington
    Douglas Nuttal
    Pete Postlethwaite
    Maurice Wormold
    Bill Paterson
    Mother
    Liz Smith
    Mrs Allardyce
    Alison Steadman
    Inspector Howard Noble
    Jim Carter
    PC Penny
    Reece Dinsdale
    Barraclough
    Don Estelle
    Mrs Sutcliff
    Eileen O’Brien

    Director
    Malcolm Mowbray

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