Britannia Hospital (1982)

Mick Travis is a reporter who is about to shoot a documentary on Britannia Hospital, an institution which mirrors the downsides of British Society. It's the day when Her Royal Highness is ... See full summary »

Director:

Lindsay Anderson

Writer:

David Sherwin

Stars:

Leonard Rossiter, Brian Pettifer, John Moffatt

1 win & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Leonard Rossiter	...	Vincent Potter
Brian Pettifer	...	Biles
John Moffatt	...	Greville Figg
Fulton Mackay	...	Chief Superintendant Johns
Vivian Pickles	...	Matron
Barbara Hicks	...	Miss Tinker
Graham Crowden	...	Professor Millar
Jill Bennett	...	Dr. MacMillan
Peter Jeffrey	...	Sir Geoffrey
Marsha A. Hunt	...	Nurse Amanda Persil (as Marsha Hunt)
Catherine Willmer	...	Dr. Houston
Mary MacLeod	...	Casualty Sister
Joan Plowright	...	Phyllis Grimshaw
Robin Askwith	...	Ben Keating
Dave Atkins	...	Sharkey

Storyline

Mick Travis is a reporter who is about to shoot a documentary on Britannia Hospital, an institution which mirrors the downsides of British Society. It's the day when Her Royal Highness is to visit the hospital to inaugurate a new wing, where advanced (and sinister) scientific experiments led by Prof. Millar will take place. Everybody in the hospital, from the cooks who refuse to cook, to the painters who couldn't care less to get their job done, to an African cannibalistic dictator (a la Amin Dada) whom demonstrators want expelled from the hospital and tried, will contribute to making HRH's visit (and Mick Travis's life) a true nightmare.

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Plot Keywords:

hospital | social satire | anti conformity | black comedy | sequel | 

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Taglines:

Will they ever recover ... ?

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Genres:

Drama | Comedy

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 May 1982 (UK)

Also Known As:

Britannia Hospital - juhlapäivä

Filming Locations:

Friern Barnet Hospital, Friern Barnet Road, Friern Barnet, London, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

EMI Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

116 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Actors Malcolm McDowell and Leonard Rossiter previously had worked together on Voyage of the Damned around six years earlier.

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Goofs

The nurse removes the gauze from HRH twice.

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Quotes

Professor Millar: Friends! Fellow Members of the Human Race! We are gathered here for a purpose. Let us look together at Mankind. What do we see? We see Mastery. What wonders Mankind can perform. He can cross the oceans and continents today, as easily as our grandfathers crossed the street. Tomorrow he will as easily cross the vast territories of space. He can make deserts FERTILE and plant cabbages on the Moon. And what does man CHOOSE? Alone among the creatures of this world, the Human Race CHOOSES to ...

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Connections

Featured in Free Cinema (1986)

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Soundtracks

"Rule Britannia"
(uncredited)
Music by Thomas Augustine Arne and lyrics by James Thomson

User Reviews

Brilliant black comedy

If you like films that leave an impression on you - then you'll like this. I saw this for the first time when I was quite young, I think my dad wished he'd known how weird it would get, or he probably wouldn't have let me watch it with him.

Whilst there is a riotous strike going on outside the hospital there is weirdness going on inside, as an eccentric doctor performs some truly sadistic acts on his patients to fulfill his own ambitions.

Its full of faces any 30-plus British audience will recognise, and if you're an Orbital fan you'll love the speech at the end which they sampled for Snivilisation.

A cult black comedy, with some quite horrific bits in, its quintessentially British, but definitely not in the vain the Full Monty or Four Wedding (thank god!).