The Smallest Show on Earth

If only I had a great-uncle “Simon” who would die (peacefully, of course) and leave me a cinema! Well that’s what “Jean” (Virginia McKenna) and “Matt” (Bill Travers) are bequeathed and so off the set to “Sloughborough” to take a look at their inheritance. Their hopes are high when the cabbie tells them the only cinema in town is the aptly named “Grand” but their dreams are soon dashed by solicitor “Robin” (Leslie Phillips) who takes them to a ramshackle old building two foot from the mainline railway. Their first instinct is to sell the thing, and their lawyer mentions that might just be possible: to “Hardcastle” (Francis De Wolff) who just happens to own the other cinema, and who needs an access road for his car park. Thing is, this man is quite shrewd and so drastically reduces his offer by 90%! “Robin” suggests the best way to get that price back up is to convince “Hardcastle” that they are going to reopen the place as a going concern. Now that’s going to be quite a challenge, but they do have the formidable “Miss Fazackalee” (Margaret Rutherford) running the place, dipso projectionist “Bill” (Peter Sellers) and curmudgeonly commissionaire “Old Tom” (Bernard Miles) so what can possibly go wrong? Margaret Rutherford is a bit like Charles Laughton in my book - she can do no wrong, and she doesn’t here, either. Though only sparingly used she serves as an amiable lynchpin for the personable characters to exude a charming sentimentality for days gone by. Days when an “electric picture theatre” was an innovation with queues outside the doors afternoons and evenings alike. Indeed, there is one touching scene here with the three old retainers enjoying a silent film, complete with Rutherford at the piano, wallowing in a comforting degree of nostalgia. If anything, this has become even more of a pleasing reminder of the great days of cinema as sixty years have passed since it was made and in those days buildings like this have passed from cinemas to bingo halls to car parks, or blocks of flats. Travers and McKenna work well together and it’s nice, for a change, to see Phillips in a less comedic role too as the final scene leaves us with something predictable. Then again, perhaps not! Cynics needn’t bother, but I really liked this.