British social comedy, more fearlessly ill-mannered than the old Ealing Studio ones it has widely been likened to, centered around the post-war food shortages and austerity programs. A small-town milquetoast chiropodist ("Mrs. Roach's ingrown toenail seems to have turned the corner"), egged on by his social-climbing wife ("I want a future that'll live up to my past....My father wore a carnation in his buttonhole every day of his life"), concocts a plan to kidnap a black-market pig: "It's not just pork, Gilbert, it's power." The accents and idioms, on top of the basic issues, do not exactly turn the movie itself into a private function (or private joke), but they do rather limit the seating capacity. The animal noises, on the other hand, and the farcical complications of having a live pig in the house, are open to, if not everyone, at least a commoner element. With Michael Palin, Maggie Smith, and Denholm Elliott; written by Alan Bennett; directed by Malcolm Mowbray. (1985) — Duncan Shepherd