"When a clandestine party goes wild, it's all about pork... and prestige."
In the summer of 1947, Britain prepares to commemorate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. To get around food-rationing laws, Dr. Charles Swaby, accountant Henry Allardyce and solicitor Frank Lockwood are fattening a black-market pig for the big day. Egged on by his wife, meek Gilbert Chilvers steals the swine, but the couple must conceal it from inspector Morris Wormold.
Michael Palin
Gilbert Chilvers
Maggie Smith
Joyce Chilvers
Denholm Elliott
Dr. Swaby
Richard Griffiths
Allardyce
Tony Haygarth
Sutcliff
John Normington
Lockwood
Bill Paterson
Wormold
Liz Smith
Mother
Alison Steadman
Mrs. Allardyce
In the summer of 1947, Britain prepares to commemorate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. To get around food-rationing laws, Dr. Charles Swaby, accountant Henry Allardyce and solicitor Frank Lockwood are fattening a black-market pig for the big day. Egged on by his wife, meek Gilbert Chilvers steals the swine, but the couple must conceal it from inspector Morris Wormold.
The forthcoming wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip is a cause for celebration in post war Britain, but it isn’t going to affect rationing that still only allows one person one rasher of bacon per week. The folks of a small Yorkshire town have their own cunning plan. Secreted in the middle of the woods, they have a pig. Despite the best efforts of the ferret-like detective “Wormold” (Bill Paterson), they are fattening it up with whatever they can find - including some ingredients that we’d sooner not have known about, ready for the big day. Unbeknownst to them, though, local chiropodist “Chilvers” (Michael Palin) gets wind of this and decides that seeing as most of the town’s grandees don’t like him very much, he is going to appropriate said beast for his wife (Maggie Smith) and her mother (Liz Smith). As you might expect from any partnership between Smith and Palin, one is a stronger, non-nonsense personality and the other maybe just a bit timid, so what chance the latter would ever know what to do with a live pig roaming around - however hungry they might be? Writer Alan Bennett would have lived through this national event and so we can assume some youthfully inspired and informed commentary as this story plays out and he peppers it with his usual brand of Northern (English) wit. Richard Griffiths and Denholm Elliott both add characterful richness to the proceedings as the daft plot successfully and entertainingly exaggerates the snobbishness of a community where nobody really has very much, but where status is still king and two turkeys isn’t going to feed the whole village!
Stanley Ford leads an idyllic bachelor life. He is a nationally syndicated cartoonist whose Bash Brannigan series provides him with a luxury townhouse and a full-time valet, Charles. When he wakes up the morning after the night before - he had attended a friend's stag party - he finds that he is married to the very beautiful woman who popped out of the cake - and who doesn't speak a word of English. Despite his initial protestations, he comes to like married life and even changes his cartoon character from a super spy to a somewhat harried husband.
At Adams College, the jocks rule from their house on high, the Alpha Beta fraternity. So when a group of socially-challenged misfits try to go Greek, they're instantly rejected by every house on campus. Deciding to start their own frat to protect their outcast brothers, the nerds soon find themselves in a battle royale as the Alpha Betas try to crush their new rivals.
During the 1930s in England, a group of young socialites dominate the national gossip with extravagant and outlandish antics. Among the group is the aspiring novelist Adam Fenwick-Symes, who is attempting to raise enough money to marry fellow member Nina Blount. However, after customs officials confiscate his first manuscript, Fenwick-Symes must recover from the financial setback and figure out new ways to earn money for a wedding.
In the hazy aftermath of World War III, the fallout from a 'nuclear misunderstanding' is producing strange mutations amongst the survivors, and the noble Lord Fortnum finds himself transforming into a bed sitting room.
A new servant embarks on an unlikely relationship with the youngest daughter of a prominent English family. Simultaneously, rivalries are spilling over in the Davenport family, led by the Lord and Lady as they also weather the epic failure of the wedding of their eldest daughter to her caddish cousin.
A psychiatrist with intense acrophobia (fear of heights) goes to work for a mental institution run by doctors who appear to be crazier than their patients, and have secrets that they are willing to commit murder to keep.
Brian Cohen is an average young Jewish man, but through a series of ridiculous events, he gains a reputation as the Messiah. When he's not dodging his followers or being scolded by his shrill mother, the hapless Brian has to contend with the pompous Pontius Pilate and acronym-obsessed members of a separatist movement. Rife with Monty Python's signature absurdity, the tale finds Brian's life paralleling Biblical lore, albeit with many more laughs.
Louie Kritski is a heartless landlord who has been so negligent in keeping up his ghetto apartment that he is threatened with jail time. The judge gives him another option -- he must live in his rat-infested hell hole until he brings it up to liveable standards.
When a childless couple—an ex-con and an ex-cop—take one of a wealthy family’s quintuplets to raise as their own, their lives grow more complicated than anticipated.
After killing her husband, Peggy Gravel and her murderous maid Grizelda wind up in the crazy town of Mortville, where Queen Carlotta presides over a sleazy collection of misfits.