Saw A Cock and Bull Story on Friday. It's Michael Winterbottom's take on The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, anarchic 18th Century novel beloved of the literati. Or rather, it's a film about the filming of Tristram Shandy, via some whimsical tangents and extrapolations into the private life of its star, Steve Coogan. It's a very funny film and also features the brilliant Rob Brydon, a man who, much like Chevy Chase, has a face seemingly designed to make people laugh.Afterwards Coogan and Brydon did a Q&A, the former playing it fairly straight whilst the latter gooned around in the background (hey, straight guy/funny guy, they could be onto something there...)
In a rare moment of candour, Coogan admitted that the rather unflattering portrayal of him in the movie was pretty close to the truth, claiming that he preferred to focus on character flaws and neuroses because it made things more interesting... As an admission, it's either brave or foolish, probably a bit of both, but as the best British comedies of the last few years (Nighty Night, the Office, Peep Show) have demonstrated, human fallibility is a virtually inexhaustible source of comic material...
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