Lindsay Anderson’s 1982 black comedy, Britannia Hospital,
completed a trilogy of films featuring the character of Mick Travis (played by
Malcolm McDowell and first seen in the 1968 film, if… and then again in O Lucky
Man! in 1973). After satirising public school life in the first film and
capitalist society in the second film, Anderson and screenwriter David Sherwin
turned their attention to the NHS and class war for their third collaboration.
Sadly, Britannia Hospital is undoubtedly the weakest of the
three films. While there are some interesting ideas, some clever comedic lines,
and strong performances from Leonard Rossiter (fully channelling his more
famous alter-ego Reggie Perrin) as the hospital administrator Mr Potter, Graham
Crowden as the ego-driven genius Professor Millar (reprising his role from O
Lucky Man!) and, in a final, glorious scene filmed shortly before his passing,
Arthur Lowe (of Dad’s Army fame) who plays a hospital patient who gets so
worked up delivering a patriotic speech that he dies, the film lacks the formal
daring of if… and the sharp, satirical allegory of its follow-up.
The plot of the film centres on Britannia Hospital’s
preparations for a royal visit to mark its 500th birthday. The visit
comes under threat due to a combination of striking workers, angered that
Britannia Hospital has a ‘private wing’ where those with wealth can recuperate
in isolation and eat kippers and devilled kidneys for breakfast, and protestors
who are demonstrating against a corrupt president of an unnamed African nation,
President Ngami, who is resident in the private wing. The film’s sub-plot
features Mick Travis (very much a supporting player in this film after being
centre-stage for the previous two; McDowell delivers a decent performance with
what material he has), now a ‘citizen of the world,’ who has replaced the gun
with a video camera as his revolutionary weapon of choice, exploring the
hi-tech Millar Centre which is on the hospital grounds. Professor Millar, whom
the centre is named for, is obsessed with harvesting organs and speaks of his
intent to reveal his latest project, ‘Genesis’, to the world during the royal
visit and Mick finds himself as an unwitting helper in Millar’s work.
Britannia Hospital straddles several tones and genres during
its near two-hour run-time: it juggles a ‘state of the nation’ commentary,
where there is civil unrest and bomb attacks, the comedic elements surrounding
the royal visit (Lady Felicity Ramsden is played by a male actor who often
talks with such an upper-class accent as to be incomprehensible) and striking
workers (with union leader Ben Keating being easily swayed to restore order to
the hospital kitchens with the promise of a MBE), an attempt at commentary on
the media through the work of Travis and his accomplices Sammy and Red and the
BBC film crew who follow Professor Millar around for most of the film, and an
excursion into science-fiction and body horror with the Millar/Genesis subplot.
Whereas such tonal shifts had been present in Anderson’s earlier films in the
trilogy, here it felt as though perhaps he and Sherwin were trying too hard,
biting off more than they could chew. The scenes with Millar which, one assumes,
parodied the films of David Cronenberg, pushed grotesque imagery to
grand-guignol proportions: in one scene, a brain is bisected and half liquified
in a food processor to make a ‘nutritious’ drink, and near the end Mick Travis
becomes the crowning touch to a Frankenstein’s monster which Millar has created
and goes berserk, his rampaging body being ripped apart and spraying all the
surgical staff in blood. The violence and gore of these scenes certainly fit
uneasily alongside the comedic elements elsewhere in the film.
The strongest moments of the film, however, come near its
climax. When the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist protestors learn that the
Queen Mother has been smuggled into the hospital, they break through the
hospital’s gates and are met with a line of riot police. In scenes which
recalled the anarchic revolution at the climax of if…, a worker offers a police
officer a flower who responds by punching the worker in the face and triggering
a full-scale riot. As workers and protestors are beaten by police (in scenes
which eerily foreshadowed clashes between striking miners and police during the
1984-85 strikes), a band plays the national anthem while the royal guests and
hospital administrative staff arrive at the Millar centre. The film’s final
scene, with a chilling speech by Millar (expertly delivered by Crowden) and
sounds even more prophetic now than it did in 1982, where he unveils Genesis (a
giant brain supported by robotic machine), which proceeds to recite the “What
piece of work is a man…” speech from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is a stark moment and
a sobering ending. A brave ending, no less, not just to this film but the
trilogy of films. Britannia Hospital may be the weakest of the ‘Mick Travis’
trilogy but that final scene is astonishing and more relevant now than ever.
Reviewer - Andrew Marsden
on - 30/7/18
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