seen on 14 February 2019
Jon S. Baird directs Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel and John C. Reilly as Oliver Hardy, with Shirley Henderson as Lucille Hardy, Nina Arianda as Ida Kitaeva Laurel and Rufus Jones as Bernard Delfont in an affectionate film about the comedy duo's 1953 tour of the UK and Ireland.
After a brief prologue set in 1937, which raises the perennial issue of actors tied to the studio system that the terms of their contracts do not reflect their true worth, the rest of the film is set in 1953 when the two are working the provincial circuit in Britain before a hoped-for booking in London and the tantalising prospect of making a film about Robin Hood. Bernard Delfont is their British manager, clearly at first not expecting much from the ageing stars (they were by then in their early sixties, and Oliver Hardy not in the best of health), having booked them into second rate theatres which do not attract large audiences.
