A Film With Me In It

I can still remember the moment I saw the first listing for a show called Black Books in the TV guide all those many years ago. I highlighted it with much interest. Yes, I highlight things in my TV guide, don't judge me on that. Within the first few minutes of watching the show I knew I'd be hooked on Dylan Moran forever.
Written by Mark Doherty (Time Trumpet) and directed by Ian Fitzgibbon (Spin The Bottle), A Film With Me In It is the very embodiment of Murphy's Law. What ever can go wrong, will go wrong.
Pierce (Dylan Moran) is a writer slash director. He's toying with an idea for a screenplay and taking a very long time to get anything on paper. Pierce spends most of his time between the pub and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
Mark Doherty (as above) plays a chap called Mark who lives in a flat downstairs from Pierce with his wheel-chair bound brother David (David Doherty - Comedy Cuts), estranged girlfriend Sally (Amy Huberman - The Clinic) and Sally's dog.
The flat is falling apart but Mark's landlord Jack (Keith Allen - Shallow Grave) keeps putting off fixing anything until Mark pays the two months rent he owes him. There's faulty electrical wiring in the kitchen, a loose chandelier in the living room, a window that doesn't stay up and a bookshelf that is about to fall off the wall at any moment.
In a bizarre turn of events, each of those faults accidentally causes someone's death. As the body count climbs, Mark and Pierce try to work out what to do. There's a police woman at the door and a lot of dead bodies inside. No one would ever believe the truth.
Wow. Just when you think things can't get any worse for these two, the film slaps you in the face as punishment for thinking that and does something even more random and hilarious than before. The plot is outrageous, even screenwriter Pierce thinks so as Mark tries to explain the situation to him as if it were an idea for a film, but it works so well. Mark and Pierce have dug themselves in a hole so deep they could toast marshmallows and watching them try and get out of it is so very entertaining.
Doherty and Moran are both brilliant in this. Moran plays the usual drunken, cantankerous character that we've grown to love. Doherty must have felt at home playing a 'Mark' alongside his real brother in his own flat. You have to wonder if he purposely wrote himself in it like the film suggests. Tis a good thing he did.
This is so well put together and goes to show that you don't need a huge budget and whizz-bang effects to make a great film.
There's an interview with Dylan Moran on the special features - make sure you check it out.
Things I learnt: never visit Mark Doherty at his house; pay your rent on time; don't play the clarinet.
Very clever.
Eight out of ten.