The Bed Sitting Room

"The Bed Sitting Room" is an absurdly comic, apocalyptic feature film produced in Britain and released in 1969, directed by Richard Lester, who is famed for gems like "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!" The film boasts an all-star cast including Rita Tushingham, Ralph Richardson, and Peter Cook. The celluloid marvel is a surreal trek through a post-apocalyptical London touched by dark whimsy.

The narrative of "The Bed Sitting Room" is based upon a play of the same name by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus and takes place in a dystopian future set on London's desolate backdrop. Less a traditional narrative and more a series of interconnected episodes, it presents viewers with Britain after the occurrence of an unspecified nuclear event, referred to as “The Event”, occurred three years before the start of the story. This apocalyptic event lasted 2 minutes and twenty-eight seconds, including commercial breaks, taking in stride a grim concept with a distinctly British sense of dark humour.

As the story explores the ruins of civilization, it unveils a small band of survivors, twenty in number, navigating their way through the remains of London amidst the nuclear aftermath. Amongst the survivors are Penelope (played by Rita Tushingham), a pregnant teenager, her parents (Arthur Lowe and Mona Washbourne), and her betrothed – Nigel (played by Richard Warwick). We also meet characters like the tormented police inspector, brilliantly played by Ralph Richardson, who gradually evolves into a bed-sitting room because someone once comments upon overpopulation and housing.

Characters’ transformations into objects or physiological states become a leitmotif as various other characters undergo similar changes – one into a parrot, one into a cupboard, and another into a nursing mother. The film is rich with such absurd twists and turns, mirroring the equally irrational destruction caused by nuclear warfare. Amongst the patchwork of fractious post-apocalypse survivors, a sense of British orderliness and decorum remarkably persists, underpinning the eccentricities with a quasi-absurdist commentary on society.

In presenting this bizarre, haunting, and mind-bending world, "The Bed Sitting Room" utilizes its cast brilliantly. There are scenes providing masterful engagement: Peter Cook as a deranged, post-apocalyptic television presenter who narrates yacht races where there are no yachts, no water, and no spectators except for a puzzled fox, and Spike Milligan treating viewers to his trademark lunacy as a roving scoutmaster forever losing his scouts.

Ralph Richardson's portrayal of Lord Fortnum adequately conveys the ticking time bomb of his inevitable transformation into a bed-sitting room. His character's exchange with a doctor, played exquisitely by Michael Hordern, adds to the dark but hilarious elements of the film. Rita Tushingham delivers a compelling performance as Penelope, carrying the burden of an unexpected and mysterious pregnancy and navigating the madness of the world she inhabits.

Stylistically, the film blends absurd comedy with surreal drama presented through the distorted lens of the British sense of humor. The desolate, ruined landscape of London, captured brilliantly by cinematographer David Watkin, provides a striking backdrop to the strangeness of the action taking place against it. Impressively designed set pieces serve to heighten the absurd and ridiculous, some of them strangely beautiful in their stark and distinctive portrayals of a post-nuclear environment.

Thematically, "The Bed Sitting Room" uses its comedic absurdity to take a biting satirical stab at class systems, British etiquette, social norms, and foreign policy. The film infuses its grim subject with the essence of a distinctly British brand of levity and dry wit. It wonderfully distorts traditional societal constructs, adopting humor and absurdity as tools to wrestle with the fear and grotesqueness of a possible nuclear apocalypse.

In essence, "The Bed Sitting Room" is best described as a peculiar cinematic journey that uniquely combines post-apocalyptic despair with absurd comedy. Despite its grim premise, the film rarely loses its sense of humor, making it resonate with audiences even today. For those seeking a cinematic experience that veers into the delightfully absurd, all the while making an incisive commentary on societal norms through a lens of dark humour, "The Bed Sitting Room" is certainly one to watch. It is an idiosyncratic testament to British humor and filmmaking irreverence.