Reviews

Student films can be dry affairs. Think Hollis Frampton's 7 mins of desiccated lemon, or one this critic was unfortunate enough to see, orientated around a group trapped in a lift, debating which of them should urinate and how. Fortunately, Hazel Barnes's approach is dry humour not dried fruit - a gentle, mannered and boisterously scored black and white homage to charming Ealing comedies and Margaret Rutherford's jolly Miss Marple movies, complete with opening scrawl, practical model effects, stock footage, handwritten notes and a great spin on the newspaper front page-as-exposition trope.

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Barnes, you feel, is very comfortable in front of an old TV, the perfect partner for old flicks and their 4:3 world, on a Sunday afternoon, with a cup of tea and an almond slice, lapping up the quaint entertainment of old. Talking Pictures should have sponsored Miss Marble - the early years is their film stock in trade.

The story sees the titular Marble and precious friend Stacy Limestone, attending a sleuthing academy, only to become embroiled in a plot by a gang of local spivs to build a bomb. Why? Damned if I know, but the Ladykillers-esque machinations are just a clothesline to hang some charming character comedy - the three Cs - and old school farce. It's funnier for being sincere, rendered without cynicism or crudity - pitch perfect qualities that evoke the Director's cheap and cheerful inspiration.

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The cast are great in multiple roles. The Barnes clan, channelling their inner Peter Sellers and Alistair Sim, fill out the dramatis personae, and running time, with endearing gusto. Hazel keeps the camera moving, the performances light, and the incongruities (a CG-rendered missile strike), absurdist. It makes for very comfortable viewing - a world that, to paraphrase The Lavender Hill Mob, is gay and sprightly - a land of mirth and social ease.