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Savoy, London; Holt Hall, Norfolk; Cottesloe, London

On the screen in 1975 it was Walter Matthau and George Burns. In a 1996 television adaptation it was Woody Allen and Peter ("Columbo") Falk. Now it's Danny DeVito and Richard Griffiths. It will always be the casting that draws audiences to The Sunshine Boys. That's just as well: Neil Simon's play is a wheezy old thing.

Griffiths and DeVito look right – which is to say mismatched – as a resurrected (just) vaudeville comedy duo who were once dependent though bickering, and are, in old age, estranged. It's not just the sheer difference in size – the Mountain and the Molehill – but the gait, the gestures, the speed across the stage, that makes the two men appear to have crash-landed from different planets.

Griffiths presides over his huge bulk like a kindly ruler quelling a potential revolution: even when flustered he moves with a light-footed grace.

Campus

Stars: Andy Nyman, Joseph Millson, Lisa Jackson, Jonathan Bailey, Sara Pascoe, Will Adamsdale, Dolly Wells | Produced and Directed by Victoria Pile

Created by the team behind Green Wing and Smack The Pony, Campus is a brand new comedy set in the hotbed of academic mediocrity that is Kirke University.

Run by the mercurial Vice Chancellor Jonty de Wolfe, played in superb Ott fashion by Andy Nyman, Kirke University is home to a veritable feast of degenerate, disingenious and downright delusional staff including philandering English Professor Matt Beer, shy Maths teacher Imogen Moffat, nice but dim student/teaching assistant Flatpack, Engineering lecturer Lydia “Big Shit” Tennant, Jason the reticent accountant and Nicole the feisty (if a little stupid) accomodations officer.

Campus is, much like Green Wing, a series of skits tied loosely together by a college setting but unlike Green Wing, Campus is darker, much darker. Be it the sexism and casual racism from Wolfe,...

I wasn’t a fan of Green Wing, the semi-improved comedy based on scripts that were a hodgepodge of jokes, sketches and sight gags gathered from a hive-mind of writers. It was an interesting way to produce a single-camera sitcom, and one that clearly found an audience, but I found its scattergun approach quite tiring. Many of Green Wing‘s writers are behind Channel 4′s new comedy offering Campus, which won’t escape “Green Wing in a university” branding, because that’s exactly what it is. The uni’s motto is even “with wings”.

“Publication, Publication, Publication” was a 70-minute extension of the half-hour Comedy Showcase pilot from 2009 (including adverts), which basically means there was an awful lot of filler. But this filler is exactly what Campus thrives on, as it’s really just an extended sequence of sketches and non sequiturs. Jonty De Wolfe (Andy Nyman) is the...

Looking for a new you for the new year? Well, help is at hand. Brian Logan meets a 'motivational life coach' with a difference

The Edinburgh comedy award is held to confer instant greatness on whoever wins it. So, Will Adamsdale, 2004's winner, what are you up to these days? "I'm getting as many people as I can – although it might just be me – to meet up in Trafalgar Square and move London. Just somehow move it a foot."

Adamsdale is talking about his Jacksathon tour, in which he resurrects the character of "motivational life coach" Chris John Jackson. It was this spoof creation, portrayed by Adamsdale in his hilarious hit show Jackson's Way, that won the actor-writer-comedian the 2004 Perrier award. Chances are standup fans have since seen little of Adamsdale, who's better known for his own theatrical works, such as subsequent shows The Human Computer and The Receipt...

Four Lions

Starring Will Adamsdale, Riz Ahmed and Adeel Akhtar

Directed by Christopher Morris/span>

Rated R

The story of four friends and there misadventures trying to find out who they are and their place in life sounds like it could be another Adam Sandler and friends movie. This is a completely new way to tell this same story maybe in the least politically correct way. Four Lions is about 4 British Muslims who want to become terrorists. Although these guys are not very good at being jihadists, think Bevis and Butthead as terrorist. Director Christopher Morris said he came up with the idea for a comedy about terrorist when reading newspapers and finding stories that were not written to get a laugh but never the less did. Easily the darkest comedy I have ever seen. This is not short on laughs but make no mistake the main characters are the...

This is the Pure Movies review for Four Lions (directed by Christopher Morris and starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Alex Macqueen, Julia Davis, Kayvan Novak, Chris Wilson, Riz Ahmed, Preeya Kalidas, Darren Boyd, Craig Parkinson and Will Adamsdale). Superior satirical comedy is very hard to come by – and even harder when it tackles tricky topics like religion, especially fundamentalist Islam in the UK today, a subject so hot that others dare not touch.

This is the first trailer for Four Lions (directed by Christopher Morris and starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Alex Macqueen, Julia Davis, Kayvan Novak, Chris Wilson, Riz Ahmed, Preeya Kalidas, Darren Boyd, Craig Parkinson and Will Adamsdale). Chris Morris' Four Lions is a funny, thrilling comedy that illuminates modern jihadism through the prism of farce. It understands jihadists as human beings. And it understands human beings as innately ridiculous. What This Is Spinal Tap did for heavy metal and Dr Strangelove the Cold War, Four Lions does for the modern face of terrorism. In a British city, four men have a secret plan. Omar (Riz Ahmed) is disillusioned about the treatment of muslims around the world and is determined to become a soldier. This is the most exciting idea Waj (Kayvan Novak) has ever heard. Better still it’s a no brainer because Omar does his thinking for him. Opposed to...

Chicago – The legendary Richard Curtis returns this week with “Pirate Radio,” the story of Radio Rock and the first disc jockeys to ever play rock and roll in the United Kingdom. Co-starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Sturridge, and many more, “Pirate Radio” is another ensemble comedy from the man who made the beloved “Love Actually” and wrote “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill,” and created “Black Adder”. Curtis recently sat down with HollywoodChicago.com (and Matt Fagerholm of Film Monthly and Locke Peterseim of RedBlog) to discuss his new film and its inspirations.

Naturally, if a writer is going to make a film about the power of rock music, he probably has a pretty close kinship to the tunes of the era himself. Curtis vividly remembers tuning into Radio Rock on his transistor, a moment copied for the very first shot of “Pirate Radio...

Chicago – In our latest comedy edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 admit-two passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of “Pirate Radio”! The film was formerly titled “The Boat That Rocked”.

“Pirate Radio” from writer and director Richard Curtis (“Love Actually,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill”) stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Sturridge, Rhys Darby, Talulah Riley and January Jones. The film opens everywhere on Nov. 13, 2009.

To win your free pass to the advance Chicago screening of “Pirate Radio” courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, all you need to do is answer our question below. That’s it! This screening will be held on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. in downtown Chicago. Directions to enter this Hookup and immediately win can be found beneath the graphic below.

“Pirate Radio” stars Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Image credit: Universal Pictures

Here...

Atomic Popcorn would like to invite you to set sail on an exciting journey. Rock & Roll will live forever – but can it float? Pirate Radio, the newest ensemble comedy from filmmaker Richard Curtis (screenwriter of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill), is ready to make your belly ache. The film has an all-star cast that includes Philip Seymour Hoffman and Bill Nighy. Tickets to the screening will be handed out at the door on Thursday, Nov. 12th at 730 pm at a local AMC theater.

Check out more about the film below:

Pirate Radio is the newest ensemble comedy from filmmaker Richard Curtis (screenwriter of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, and writer/director of Love Actually), spinning the irreverent yet fact-based tale of a seafaring band of rogue rock and roll deejays whose “pirate radio” captivated and inspired 1960s Britain. Playing the music that rocked a nation and a decade,...

Let me get one thing out of the way first, I love writer/director Richard Curtis, were I not an actual man (chest hair, pot-belly and all) I’d have his babies! Why? Because I love what the man brings to British cinema!

While I may not enjoy all of his films, I love the fact that Curtis can combine a relatively low budget and a largely British cast and generally create something that, while modest, breaks out into mainstream Hollywood!

Here is the man who made Hugh Grant a star, he turned Rhys Ifans into a household name, he brought us Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Vicar of Dibley! In short, Richard Curtis has probably done more for British film and television worldwide than any other writer or director had dared dream. With Curtis, the humble British Film Industry can stand strong against the trillion dollar behemoth that is the Hollywood machine.