Yoo-hoo! Mand!

I was off sick yesterday, for the first time in about four years, so spent the day on the sofa banging through the stockpile of DVDs that I own.

I watched two Mike Leigh films back to back, which could bring on a relapse but was actually great. Kiss of Death stars a very young David Threlfall as an awkward undertaker's assistant who's shy with women but who, it turns out, is actually the one in control. it wasn't particularly amusing but as pleasingly bleak as the usual Leigh stuff.

Grown-ups I remember watching with my parents when it was a Play For Today in 1980, and I've not seen it since. It's got a (now) stellar cast: Lindsay Duncan, Sam Kelly, Lesley Manville, Phil Davis, Janine Duvitski and Brenda Blethyn.

Manville and Davis are young marrieds who move into this horrible house which, as it happens, is next door to their old teacher and his wife. Brenda Blethyn is Manville's older sister who lives at home looking after her mean mother so can't bear to spend any time there, and constantly forces herself on her younger sister and husband tire of her almost immediately.

Needless to say, it all ends in tears and hysterics, but Brenda Blethyn is really funny as this gorgon of a sister dressing in modish clothes that are far too young for her and who never, ever, stops talking.

But watching these it became clear that all Mike Leigh films are essentially the same. But none the worse for that.