The Bed-Sitting Room

John Antrobus with Spike Milligan

(1963)

Extravagantly lunatic black comedy begins in Captain Pontius Kak's surgery and Government Surplus Store not long after atomic World War Three. Lord Fortnum of Alamein confesses to Kak his morbid fear of turning into a bed-sitting room - and Acts 2 and 3 take place inside him after he has done so. Mate (Arthur Scroake) and other surreal characters whizz in and out, spouting no sequiturs and nonsensically aping aspects of their pre-bomb existence.

Clothed in an array of rags and junk, the few survivors resolutely ignore the reality of their predicament. Only Mate has glimpses of the awful ramifications of what has happened, but, like everyone else is amazed when Kak's heartbroken wife Penelope asks God to give her back her dead monster baby - and the thing revives. They all crowd round …