Clockwise (1986)

Goon Pod

As it's Christmas this week we wanted to shake things up and try something a little different... so we decided to talk about a British comedy film which doesn't feature a Goon!

A change is as good as a rest and anyway, the film is a cracker.

In 1986 John Cleese starred in a Michael Frayn-scripted comic farce called Clockwise, in which he plays headmaster Brian Stimpson who needs to get to far-flung Norwich in order to deliver a speech.

Having missed the train, Stimpson enlists the help of one of his pupils to drive him and what follows is a series of hilarious mishaps and misunderstandings with countless laws being broken along the way.

It was the film that inspired Cleese to embark upon A Fish Called Wanda and is one of the greatest - if sometimes overlooked - British comedy films of the eighties.

Chris Diamond of TV Cream returns for a fourth time and finally gets the key to the executive washroom. Having not seen the film since it was released he had a lot to say and props are given to the supporting cast including Stephen Moore, Joan Hickson, Tony Haygarth and Penelope Wilton. As for Stimpson: is he, as Tyler suggests, a 'less Tory' Basil Fawlty? This and many more questions are asked, and some of them are even answered!