Death At A Funeral

AVAILABLE ON DVD APRIL 9TH 2008

Review by David Stratton

Death At A Funeral, opens in a private house in the English countryside where a funeral is taking place.

The dead man’s son, Daniel, (MATTHEW MACFADYEN), a would-be writer, is to give the eulogy, though just about everyone reckons that his brother, Robert, (RUPERT GRAVES), a writer based in New York, would do the job better.

Among the attendees are the widow, (JANE ASHER), Daniel’s anxious wife, Jane, (KEELEY HAWES), the dead man’s pompous brother, PETER EGAN and his two children, daughter Martha, (DAISY DONOVAN), who turns up with her boyfriend, Simon, (ALAN TUDYK), and son Troy, (KRIS MARSHALL), a drug manufacturer.

When Simon accidentally takes one of Troy’s hallucinogenic tablets in mistake for valium he starts behaving very oddly.

EWEN BREMNER, with whom Martha once had a one-night stand, won’t take "no" for an answer.

And then there’s a surprise guest, Peter, (PETER DINKLAGE), who throws a major spanner into the works.

This frequently hilarious British comedy benefits from an excellent screenplay by Dean Craig who knows precisely how to tip basically real, even rather painful, situations into side-splitting farce.

Director Frank Oz does a fine job with this quintissentially British material (it’s basically a comedy of manners, mostly bad manners) and he’s helped by a really splendid cast.

Special mention should go to ALAN TUDYK whose hallucinating Simon is a wonderful creation, to DAISY DONOVAN as his long-suffering girlfriend, and to EWEN BREMNER as the obnoxious, yet at the same time strangely touching, Justin, the man Martha prefers to forget.

But the entire ensemble is excellent and ensures that this modest but richly entertaining comedy is a considerable success.