Monty Python alumnus John Cleese stars as the fastidious public school headmaster Brian Stimpson, a man who has scheduled his life down to the minute and expects his school to be run the same way, in this underrated British comedy of the 1980s.
When his schedule is thrown off on the day he is to become the Chairman of the Headmasters Conference, it begins a chain reaction that dismantles his carefully structured life. Starting with a ride from a student playing hooky (Sharon Maiden), the paragon of discipline starts breaking all the rules in his hysterical desperation to get to the conference on time and bask in the adulation of his peers.
The role was written for Cleese by playwright Michael Frayn, author of the hit farce Noises Off, and it plays to Cleese's strengths as the stern authoritarian whose ego overpowers both his sense of decorum and his sense of shame. Frayn builds the cascade of disasters slowly, beginning with boarding the wrong train, and his misdemeanors spiral into kidnapping and theft.
Before long his wife, the student's parents, a jealous boyfriend, and the police are all in mad pursuit. It's directed with a mix of slapstick, whimsy, farce, and low-key visual gags but it's all built on Cleese's portrait ofthe snippy, sarcastic authority figure devolving into manic hysteria, trying to hold on to a show of dignity while he betrays everything he espouses.
The finale is classic Cleese, putting on a poseof decorum while his big speech is constantly interrupted and he finally reverts to form, treating the gathered colleagues from prestigious schools as naughty students in need of discipline. Director Christopher Morahan has his cast underplay throughout the chaos, which only makes the absurdity of it all the funnier.
It's a dryly hilarious satire of British class snobbery andmanners and a comedy well worth rediscovering for anyone who likes the comedy of Monty Python, Cleese's Fawlty Towers and A Fish Called Wanda, or the British tradition of low-key humor and gently eccentric characters.
Kino Lorber presents a new 4K restoration of the film in a special edition release featuring commentary by entertainment journalist Bryan Reesman and archival interviews with star JohnCleese and composer George Fenton. Recommended.