Harry Hill
- 60 years old
- English
- Actor, writer, executive producer, comedian, director and editor
Press clippings Page 29
Harry Hill & Omid Djalili for Slapstick festival
Barry Cryer, Omid Djalili, The Goodies, Harry Hill, Terry Jones, Phill Jupitus, Paul McGann, Lucy Porter and Tim Vine will be among the celebrities who will be visiting Bristol between 24 and 26 January.
Guide2Bristol, 2nd January 2014Harry Hill interview
Harry Hill has moved away from prime-time TV with a Simon Cowell-baiting musical.
The Big Issue, 2nd January 2014If the 90 per cent empty auditorium in which I saw this film earlier this week is any guide, TV comic Harry Hill has not struck gold, but something much smellier, with his graduation to the big screen.
Maybe it's Marmite, for people either love or hate his brand of comedy. As with Marmite, if you don't have the taste for it, it's not easily acquired, and it won't be acquired here.
Like Russ Abbot and Freddie Starr, before him, Hill revels in the adjective 'madcap', and there is certainly a strong madcap element to this tale of the ever-genial Harry and his nan (an exceedingly game Julie Walters) taking their apparently terminally-ill hamster (in fact, a cuddly toy) to Blackpool.
On the way they run into Jim Broadbent, playing a three-armed female cleaner in a nuclear power station, and Sheridan Smith, who plays the princess in a nautical tribe of shell people. Meanwhile, they are pursued by two villains dispatched by Harry's evil identical twin Otto (Matt Lucas).
Hill has attracted some top-notch British talent. Whether they read the script first is open to question.
Otto is cross because he was given up for adoption to a group of Alsatians in Kettering, and from that you get a hint of the kind of humour that prevails.
It's surreal, for sure, but the kind of surrealism that makes you sink lower and lower in your seat, wondering whether to make a dash for the exit.
If you do sit it out, though, there's some enjoyment to be had in spotting the comedy references - to The Goodies, The Lavender Hill Mob, even Charlie Chaplin's City Lights.
But I'm afraid that serves mainly to remind us what good comedy is, and what this isn't.
Brian Viner, Daily Mail, 26th December 2013Harry Hill's nativity scene painting
The comedian recasts the birth of our Lord with Nigella, Miley and Tom Daley.
Harry Hill, The Guardian, 24th December 2013The Harry Hill Movie - review
Exactly what you'd expect, which is either good or bad depending on your Hill position. It seems churlish to criticise it for being rubbish when being rubbish is the whole point.
Owen Williams, Empire, 21st December 2013Screenplay isn't so much offbeat as utterly feeble
Harry Hill's big screen debut is a bit of a misfire.
Geoffrey MacNab, The Independent, 21st December 2013Harry Hill: The Movie - Review
Too many ideas that might look zany and original on paper actually seem increasingly futile, even desperate.
Steve Bennett, Chortle, 20th December 2013The Harry Hill Movie - review
After a zippy opening 15 minutes, the duff jokes and spoofs accumulate and everyone starts to look stranded on screen.
Ryan Gilbey, The Guardian, 20th December 2013Harry Hill Movie - Review
There's not enough here to sustain 88 minutes, too many of the jokes fall flat and the image of Julie Walters rapping isn't one you'll be able to shift soon. But the set-piece gags are memorable.
Tom Huddleston, Time Out, 20th December 2013Video: Mark Kermode reviews The Harry Hill Movie
Mark Kermode reviews The Harry Hill Movie. He says he didn't laugh once.
BBC, 20th December 2013