Directed by veteran Frank Oz and written by Dean Craig, this is a British comedy in the screwball vein, with so many twists and turns and interleaved funny moments that it is hard to keep up. The target is the upper middle-class, with the eccentric collective and toffee noses out of joint and coping badly with each disaster that befalls the day.

This has a strong cast, amongst them struggling writer Matthew Macfadyen as the main player and long suffering son Daniel, his successful brother and skirt chaser RobertΒ  (Rupert Graves), Daisy Donovan, Peter Dinklage, Ewen Bremner, Andy Nyman, and Jane Asher playing the widow of the piece, and Peter Dinklage as the gay dwarf (yes, you read that right!)

It all starts to go pear shaped, when the wrong coffin and body are delivered to the house on the morning of the funeral service, causing panic and a swift recovery by the undertaker. We then see the various parties in the piece making their way to the house, and the various events that will play a part in later chapters of the movie. There are accidental uses of a hallucinogenic and consequent misbehaviour of one guest, and a dwarf that produces somewhat startling images and a connection to their now dead father.

The characters are all drawn quite well before the mayhem begins, the introductions are not overlong, and the script stays firmly British and retains the central thesis of elitism being roughed up. When it does get going, there is hardly time to draw breath between the frantic comedy moments, each one a disaster scenario that adds to the anguish of the assembled mourners, but leaves the viewer with a gag fest, a lot more hit than miss, though sometimes a bit gross in the toilet humour department.

7.5/10, Sometimes crude, builds from a slow start to frantic paced comedy, this is definitely one to get a laugh from most. There are some characters drawn simply as the butt of upcoming jokes, but all in all the cast pulls off a funny and engaging piece.