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Comfort and Joy

Comfort and Joy

  • Status: Released
  • 14-08-1984
  • Runtime: 106 min
  • Score: 6.543
  • Vote count: 58

Radio host Alan 'Dickie' Bird witnesses how an icecream van is attacked and destroyed by angry competitors. This leads him into the struggle between two Italian families over the icecream market of Glasgow.

Bill Paterson

Alan

Eleanor David

Maddy

Clare Grogan

Charlotte

Alex Norton

Trevor

Patrick Malahide

Colin

Roberto Bernardi

Mr. McCool

Rikki Fulton

Hilary

George Rossi

Bruno

Peter Rossi

Paolo

Billy McElhaney

Renato

Iain McColl

Archie

Billy Johnstone

Amos

Gilly Gilchrist

Rufus

Caroline Guthrie

Gloria

Oona McCracken

Nancy

Elizabeth Sinclair

Fiona

Katy Black

Sarah

Robin Black

Lily

Ron Donachie

George

Arnold Brown

Psychiatrist

Robert Buchanan

Trevor's Workman

Douglas Sannachan

Trevor's Workman

Billy Greenlees

Trevor's Workman

Alan Tall

Trevor's Workman

Bob Starrett

Trevor's Workman

David O'Hara

Engineer

Teri Lally

Shop Assistant

Allan Wylie

Newsreader

Alistair Campbell

Keith

Charles Kearney

All-Night DJ

Elspeth Cameron

Mrs Wilson

Pearl Deans

Maria

Ray Jeffries

Removal Man

Patrick Lewsley

Removal Man

Ronald McCleod Veitch

Dentist

Johnny Irving

Bob Hope Look-Alike

Johnny Mac

Fred Astaire Look-Alike

r96sk

A nice, amusing and creative premise. I enjoyed <em>'Comfort and Joy'</em>. Bill Paterson heads events confidently as Alan, he's fun to watch in the lead. Patrick Malahide (<em>'Game of Thrones'</em>, <em>'Luther'</em>) is in there too, while Alex Norton and Roberto Bernardi play their respective roles well. The pacing, to me at least, is a little off at around the midway point, but otherwise it's a pleasant film from 1984. Watch it if you get the opportunity.

CinemaSerf

Without any help at all from "Mr. Bridger", the Italian chip shops and ice cream vans of Glasgow are being smashed up. It's only because he takes a bit of a shine to one of the girls in the van that local radio personality "Alan" (Bill Peterson) witnesses one of the assaults and decides that he must do something to ensure peace breaks out. There really were "ice cream wars" in Glasgow so this engaging comedy has it's roots in fact as he tries to get the warring "Mr. Cool" (Robert Bernardi) and "Mr. Bunny" (Alex Norton) round the wafer table before his new soft-top BMW becomes little more than a bright red ashtray. He starts to use his radio show to convey illicit messages that just come across as gobbledegook to his station boss "Hilary" (Rikki Fulton) and soon his own career is starting to look like it might be melting too. The solution. Well anyone who's ever been to the city will know that we fry everything - even Mars bars! Patterson is on good form here, and his amiable delivery quite subtly takes an entertaining ping at the mundanity of commercial radio and it's banal advertising whilst touching on then ridiculing what was quite a serious issue at the time. Rikki Fulton has expert comedy timing and facial expressions that deliver what a thousand words never could. "Has he got a sanity clause"? Well it is the winter. Well worth a watch.