Based on Alan Bennett's first feature script, this is a very English affair: a dark, exquisitely-observed comedy, funded by George Harrison's Handmade Films and starring the cream of British talent, including Maggie Smith (tremendous as a cabbage patch Lady Macbeth), Denholm Elliott and Liz Smith, who all won BAFTA awards. But it's Michael Palin - as a mousey chiropodist persuaded to steal the "unlicensed" porker by his snobby wife (Smith) in post-War Yorkshire - who provides the heart.
Director Mowbray's sense of toilet humour at times threatens to overturn Bennett's carefully observed farce, but the performances really save the film.