Alastair Sim

Scotland's funniest 60 people

As the Glasgow International Comedy Festival prepares to launch with a gaggle of giggles later this month, we count down Scotland's funniest 60 people.

Stanley: A Man of Variety review

In this macabre one-man drama, Spall is marvellous as a psychiatric patient who brings to life a string of showbiz icons.

Review: Stanley - A Man Of Variety

Deliberately disconcerting, Stanley - Man Of Variety is also frustrating and unsatisfying, each scene a curious little sketch on its own, but amounting to very little.

First and best of the screen adventures of Ronald Searle's anarchic cartoon schoolgels, who dress in gymslips, carry jolly hockey sticks and take A-levels in GBH. A gloriously gaudy farce, with an alpha-plus cast: lugubrious Alastair Sim as the headmistress (and her brother), George Cole's archetypal spiv and Joyce Grenfell's plummy teacher.

A plucky young Harry Fowler leads a gang of East End youths who are outraged to discover that black market smugglers are communicating through the pages of their favourite comic. Alastair Sim is a delight as the comic's artist Felix H Wilkinson, but with its abductions and menacing phony cop, there's real suspense, too. It's set solidly amid the ruins of blitzed London and in that long-gone age, a horde of kids swarm over the rubble to apprehend the crooks. Scripted by TEB Clarke, of Passport to Pimlico fame, it's a real treat, even by Ealing standards.

Robert Hamer's last film, made as his alcoholism was taking a heavy toll, lacks the delicious wickedness of earlier works, such as Kind Hearts And Coronet, but there's much to enjoy. Based on Stephen Potter's bestselling books Gamesmanship, Oneupmanship and Lifemanship, it stars Ian Carmichael as the naive Palfrey, who joins Alastair Sim's College of Lifemanship to turn the tables on his oppressors: a snooty waiter, a pair of secondhand car swindlers and, worst of all, tennis cheat Terry-Thomas, who has stolen his girlfriend.

Cartoonist Ronald Searle's naughty public schoolgirls are back - this time rebooted for the 21st century. So as well as the sexy sixth formers, the rabble of lacrosse-stick waving young'uns are now split into cliques such as geeks and emos. Despite a cast over-crammed with the likes of Russell Brand and Stephen Fry, Ealing Studios' kidult comedy could never rival the golden 1950s black-and-white classics starring Alastair Sim and Joyce Grenfell. But try not to compare them and it is a jolly enough, if surprisingly 'safe', watch - no Asbos here, just girlish high spirits. It's worth seeing just to catch Rupert Everett, in headscarf and tweeds, as headmistress Camilla Fritton - think a mix of Ab Fab's Patsy and the former Mrs Parker-Bowles. His seduction of Colin Firth's nervous school inspector is even more of a hoot than your French teacher sitting on a whoopee cushion.

With his hangdog expression and fruity Edinburgh burr Alastair Sim created numerous whimsical characters during a career on stage and screen that spanned more than 40 years - perhaps none more memorable than the creepily convincing Miss Fritton, headmistress in the St Trinian's films. This 1997 profile celebrates his achievements and speaks to his widow Naomi Plaskitt (Sim died in 1976), as well as hearing from friends, co-stars and admirers, including George Cole, Stephen Fry, Ian McKellen, Patricia Routledge and Nigel Hawthorne.