This is a film in which the leading man has an obvious combover and a cardboard belt. His co-star is a newcomer of gawky proportions and equally comical hair. The opening scenes feature the pair of them talking for half an hour. And then the film u-turns into a musical, complete with tasteless dancing girls in comedy costumes. As if realising the desperate situation he has created for himself, the writer/director finally presses the plunger on a Turn Plot Off Now Switch fashioned from dynamite. NONE of this should work. Mel Brooks’ The Producers is, of course, an absolute triumph.

Mike Hickman (@MikeHic13940507) is a writer from York, England. He has written for Off the Rock Productions (stage and audio), including a 2018 play about Groucho Marx. He has recently been published in the Blake-Jones Review, Bitchin’ Kitsch, the Cabinet of Heed, the Potato Soup Journal, and the Trouvaille Review.