Arthur's Dyke

Nice lightweight late night BBC film with a lot of familiar UK television faces such as the ever reliable Robert Daws . Could have done with more of Brian Conley as Pauline Quirke's unfaithful husband . His insensitive oafs are always a laugh . Check him out as Doug Digby , the bullying PE teacher in The Grimleys , an overlooked UK comedy of a few years back .

The scenery is , of course marvelous . Could be a tourist ad for Wales. Arthur's (or Offa's ) Dyke is spectacular . Two highpoints , for the " lads " are the almost Carry On scenes with Ellie Beaven and Rebecca Lacey . Gratuitous but fun . Worth seeing .

It seems odd to see so many negative comments about this film - Maybe the people who watched it were expecting something more like "Cliffhanger".

This is one of those quirky films that the British do very well - It's not hugely about anything, though in some ways it's a "coming of age" movie for people who have already come of age. I have nothing else to add about the plot, that has been covered in other reviews but if you want to watch a nice film that is very British and possibly requires quite a subtle sense of humour at times to appreciate (though other times, not so subtle; we still stereotype Swedes better than they do!).

This British (very) light comedy, is a conventional modern Pilgrims Progress that attempts to do for the Offa's Dyke long-distance walking path what "Shirley Valentine" did for Greece and "Educating Rita" did for the Open University.

The cluster of UK TV-hits acting talent did their best with the script, but ultimately were unable to get past the contemporary clichés and cardboard characterisations. Since the star was meant to be the landscape and a flavour of how nice it is to walk through the English/Welsh Countryside, the director should have gone the whole hog and treated us to the best spectacle the location has to offer. However, the shots are fine enough, authentic and evocative, and that's what kept me awake late at night watching it right through to the end. And the message of the story - that I have turned into a TV/computer couch-potato, managed to hit home.

Just for the record, Offa's Dyke was the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the Berlin Wall, (or, to be more up to date, the Palestine Wall.) It is 180 miles long, and built by Offa, King of Mercia, in the latter half of the 8th century to separate the Welsh from the English. Today it winds through English and Welsh Counties, thus one gets a bit of both, which the film conveys.

I wanted to give it 5.5 heading for 6 by my scoring method, but for some reason I settled on 5, probably through feeling embarrassed for the competent team of actors, and the UK comedy industry as a whole.

A fine and classically accurate representation of country hikes in the UK. I have a lot of experience of such walks and consider this movie a definite five star effort. Warren Clarke was superb. I am STILL laughing!

It made me feel quite homesick.

I was surprised at the negative comments in one of the other reviews, obviously written by someone who has never gone past the end of the street!

Caught this late last night on UK BBC 1 - Wish I hadn't.

What could have been a pretty good film was badly let down by one of the worst scripts I have ever seen in British film of this type.

Stereotypical characters of the very worst type.

90% of this film was rendered unwatchable by dialogue that comes across as written by a 13 year old.

EG - Lets have a gay hotel owner. Make him camp it up like John Inman on crystal meth. Then give him some dialogue that would have been kicked out of the worst "Carry On". "Fricasee", yeah what a hoot.

A great shame.