Film review – No Sex Please – We’re British

My notes on No Sex Please – We’re British

Anthony Marriott and Alistair Foot’s farce ran so long in London (1971-87) that it outlasted the shelf life of this unambitious film version.  Michael Crawford originated the role of clot Brian Runnicles on stage – but miscast Ronnie Corbett toplines the film.  You can’t believe co-worker Daphne (Cheryl Hall) has a crush on someone played by Ronnie Corbett.

In the opening slapstick montage, Brian jogs through Windsor on his way to work and leaves havoc behind him.  Significantly, he slams a cake into the face of a baker’s delivery boy played by Robin Askwith, doing a face-splat cameo which suggests this is out to one-up the Confessions series.  This is, as the title suggests, a very British comedy of embarrasment.  Inept pornography wholesaler (Stefan Grief) mixes up addresses and keeps sending obscene material not to the sex shop (run by John Bindon) but a branch of Barclays Bank.  Assistant manager David Hunter (Ian Ogilvy), his new wife Penny (Susan Penhaligon) and hapless Brian struggle to get rid of the filth before it comes to the attention of anti-smut campaigner manager Mr Bromley (Arthur Lowe).  Possibly because of its stage origins, it’s not attracted the retrospective attention bestowed on even the direst British sex comedies and is less well-remembered than even the weakest Carry Ons (in a literal echo of that series, Eric Rogers provides the score).  However, it’s more entertaining than, say, Come Play With Me (1977) or Carry On Emmannuelle (1978), despite protratcted business as characters totter around with huge stacks of coffee table book 1001 Perversions.  The stage-honed business in the flat above the bank where doors open and close and people tumble out in stages of delirium and undress offers innuendoes and absurdities delivered to perfection by Lowe and (woman of the match) Beryl Reid.  When a vegetarian promises a ‘herb omelet’, Mr Bromley deadpans ‘is that the Tijuana Brass fellow?’

Penhaligon and Ogilvy are less comfortable and their strained mugging and posing threatens to throttle the material.  Away from the flat, chases through Windsor and environs involve nice views of the town c 1973 (the castle visible from almost everywhere).  Sadly, director Cliff Owen also goes for the sort of sped-up action, face-pulling, incidental damage and humiliation (anglers tipped into the Thames) which gets passed off as officially comical without ever really raising a titter.  However, the tiresome twaddle is enlivened by quite a few good lines and much sterling British character acting.  Gerald Sim really goes for it as a furious vicar struck with Stendhal Syndrome by the accidental projection of blue film Jack and Jill … Forgot the Pill (other titles in the consignment – Teazy Rider and Winnie the Poof) and a lot of familiar faces (David Swift, Michael Robbins, Frank Thornton, Michael Ripper, Brian Wilde, Sydney Bromley) show up.  Valerie Leon and Margaret Nolan appear as cheery call girls in fetish underwear but offer a Benny Hill level of titillation which separates this from sexploitation … aside from the odd decision to afford glimpses of Penhaligon’s nipples in a bath scene and Michael Bates’ arse when his pajama bottoms slide down.  Oh, and god bless Cheryl Hall for injecting one tiny moment of actual feeling and pathos into the hectic finale.