Top of the Bill

Minor ex-music hall acts give impressions of much better known acts. The quality runs from OK to awful, mostly awful. In between the turns, Ben Warriss (whose face the camera doesn't love at all, and you won't either, which is why he didn't follow his ex-partner Jimmy Jewel into TV work) and a small, yappy BBC executive with a big pipe reminisce pompously about a lost era of great live entertainment. The viewer may agree, but not because s/he watched this depressingly inept effort.

When this film was made there was a levy on admissions that was paid out to British producers.So a film like this could be made profitably because of the money it received from the levy.The producers of this film were past masters of this.Their films were so bad I would go out of the cinema until they ended.This film is principally introduced by Ben Warrington and Davy Kaye.They are often to be found outside office buildings,where theatres used to stand,and interview old women in pointless interviews.There are no interior shots of any theatre.This is interspersed by turns by acts whose lack of talent may give a clue as to the death of the halls.Excruciatingly bad are the Flanagan an Allen impersonators matched by the impersonator who had to announce the name of the star he was impersonating.Furthermore it is quite apparent that the laughter and applause is canned.This should have been a lot beter