Jeff Pope

London film review: 'Stan & Ollie'

Portraying Laurel and Hardy's final comic collaboration with bittersweet affection, Jon S. Baird's film is a laid-back, gamely performed tribute

Stan & Ollie review

The actors deliver believable performances as the over-the-hill slapstick duo in a solid dramedy about their final tour.

Stan & Ollie review, LFF

Our critic reviews the Laurel and Hardy biopic, starring Steve Coogan and John C Reilly, as it closes out the London Film Festival.

'Stan & Ollie': film review | London 2018

There was little that was bold or adventurous about Laurel and Hardy's comedy, which is doubtless why their films have not been rediscovered by younger generations over the past half-century; unusually for top comics, their work was benign, not subversive. But even if it only occasionally provokes big laughs, this sweet, small film makes you smile most of the way through, which may be a more uncommon feat.

Jeff Pope on Caroline Aherne

Even at the peak of her success, she was battling cancer and depression. But, says her friend and writing partner, she turned everything into a funny story.

Cradle to Grave was set in the 1970s as we watched the teenage exploits of a young Danny Baker as he attempted to navigate adolescence. Although this was essentially the story of the teenage Danny (played here by Laurie Kynaston) most of the screen time was eaten up by his father Spud (Peter Kay). Spud was written as the stereotypical sitcom patriarch who was always after the next scheme whether it be selling embalming fluid as Schnapps or stuffing his house full of continental quilts to sell to the neighbourhood. The problem with Spud's stories is that they tended not to fit into the rest of the episode meaning that Baker and co-writer Jeff Pope had to shoehorn them. In was this almost anecdotal narrative that spoilt Cradle to Grave for me as it felt like a sketch show about Baker's life rather than a pure half hour comedy episode. Attempts to tie all the stories together by incorporating a trip to the theatre to see 'Hair' didn't really work even though the musical scene itself did provide the episode's biggest laugh. The other issue I had with Cradle to Grave was the casting of Peter Kay in the lead role of Spud. Although I understand that getting a big name helps to attract viewers, proud Northerner Kay playing old school Londoner Spud didn't ring true. The fact that Kay was struggling with the accent led him to almost shout all of his lines and in the process turned what could've been a rather realistic 1970s dad into a comedy caricature. It's a shame because underneath all the mess there were decent glimpses of a coming-of-age comedy about a youngster who wasn't quite sure of his place in the world. I have to admit than whenever Laurie Kynaston was on screen by himself Cradle to Grave was at its strongest. However the over-reliance on the larger-than-life Spud and the fragmented narrative meant that Cradle to Grave had a rather confused tone which meant that I could never fully relax into it.

Cradle to Grave was, in comparison to Danny and the Human Zoo, a similarly refractive concoction, a picaresque of the young life of the DJ and celebrity Danny Baker, written in part by Baker and based on his own memoir. Once again we were thrust in to the so-bad-they-were-good Seventies, as the Chopper bike tootling past in the background made plain, but we'd shifted from Dudley to east London and from one wide-eyed Danny boy to another. Sensibly, Baker and his co-writer Jeff Pope used this young Danny as the window on the world, not as a protagonist - he existed mainly as a voice-over setting the scene for the various travails of the Baker family. Instead, the main character was Danny's father Fred, played by Peter Kay as part Arthur Daley, part Del Boy. Mostly, though, he was Peter Kay, barely bothering with a cockney accent but still blessed with the single funniest face on television, one of the few men who can make me laugh with the sound off.

Cradle to Grave was funnier than Danny and the Human Zoo, and it managed to achieve the crucial balance of being fond of its characters without ever worshipping them. Yet just as with Danny and the Human Zoo, and its association with Lenny Henry, I found the fact that Cradle to Grave was based on the life of Danny Baker a distraction. Essentially, both of these shows were self-congratulatory because they all came from the perspective of the viewer knowing that, ultimately, both of these Lenny/Dannys have done pretty good. Self-congratulation is what humour should be mocking, not the stuff of humour itself.

Given his gift for sprawling anecdotage, chopping the adolescent life of Danny Baker into half-hourly chunks must have been some task, but that's exactly what Baker and Jeff Pope have done here, telling the tale of Baker's Bermondsey circa 1974. With family life dominated by uncompromising patriarch Fred (played arrestingly by Peter Kay), teenage life is far from easy for the wideboy wordsmith. Despite a premise not dissimilar to Only Fools And Horses precursor Rock & Chips, this is a promising period piece.

Radio Times review

In the 1970s, young Danny Bakers chaotic east London home was always packed with knocked-off gear secured by his lairy geezer of a docker dad. Once, most memorably, continental quilts (that's duvets to you, young people): "It was like living in a huge bag of marshmallows," says 15-year-old Danny in the voiceover.

Baker and writer Jeff Pope have adapted Baker's autobiography Going to Sea in a Sieve into this cheerful eight-part comedy, headed by Peter Kay who ditches those rich Lancashire tones for a gorblimey cockney accent as dad Spud.

Spud always has an eye to the main chance, pinching from the cargo holds of ships he unloads at the docks. There's a funny scene when he and his mates steal a snifter from a barrel of what they think contains booze. "Trust me," says Spud, to his understandably sceptical friends.

Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope working on new 'dramedy'

Philomena writers Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope are already working on another British 'dramedy' script.