boycem

I understood that Mr. Bleasdale was a Dickens' director when, in GBH (1991), I saw an news hound being gored with the point of a gamp while he was peering through the slot of a letter box.

Here In Australia, where, according to the Leeford succubus, our natives are too plucky, we have only seen the first episode, and I should just like to agree with Mr. Underwood and the mysterious Dennis-77 that Mark Warren's performance as the scorbutic Edwin Leeford is exceptionally fine.

Apart from James Whale's Borris Karlof make up, it is a flawless piece of comic acting.

Thank you England for sending us Uriah Heap, Mr. Micawber, Abel Magwitch and Mark Warren.

A mirthless comedy lampooning reactionary North American Catholicism.

Libertarian Ideas that are commonly accepted in most first world countries are clumsily defended in this quintessentially vapid North American satire.

Female ordination, black representation, invincible ignorance, and the practice of abortion are nobly if inarticulately defended against intolerance in the form of a far-right Catholic Church.

Curiously absent from this triumvirate of popular pieties, apart from a brief homophobic drollery, is the recognition of homosexuality.

But Kevin Smith, scarcely an adult himself, appears to be primarily concerned with appealing to an uneducated teenage male market, whom are unlikely to countenance such surreal practices.

Alan Rickman appears uncomfortable with his role, Metatron, and the drivel his character ejaculates, which at times is so cloying that I thought I detected a smirk.

Ben Affleck alone manages to assemble something approaching a performance, helped, uniquely, by Smith whom supplied his character, Bartleby, with delightful Miltonic anxiety.

Much as I enjoyed Serendipity's (Salma Hayak) charming dance, it is a pity that misogyny was such a recurring theme, often celebrated and ineffectually criticised.