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Title: Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Steve Coogan | ... | Tristram Shandy / Walter Shandy / Steve Coogan | |
| Rob Brydon | ... | Capt. Toby Shandy / Rob Brydon | |
| Keeley Hawes | ... | Elizabeth / Keeley Hawes | |
| Shirley Henderson | ... | Susannah | |
| Raymond Waring | ... | Trim | |
 |
Conal Murphy | ... | Young Tristram Shandy - Age 6 |
|
|
Joe Williams | ... | Young Tristram Shandy - Age 9 |
| Paul Kynman | ... | Obadiah | |
| Mark Tandy | ... | London Doctor | |
| Mary Healey | ... | Midwife | |
| Dylan Moran | ... | Dr. Slop | |
| Jack Shepherd | ... | Surgeon | |
| David Walliams | ... | Parson | |
| Jeremy Northam | ... | Mark | |
| Benedict Wong | ... | Ed | |
Two actors, as their make up is applied, talk about the size of their parts. Then into the film: Laurence Sterne's unfilmable novel, Tristram Shandy, a fictive autobiography wherein the narrator, interrupted constantly, takes the entire story to be born. The film tracks between "Shandy" and behind the scenes. Size matters: parts, egos, shoes, noses. The lead's girlfriend, with their infant son, is up from London for the night, wanting sex; interruptions are constant. Scenes are shot, re-shot, and discarded. The purpose of the project is elusive. Fathers and sons; men and women; cocks and bulls. Life is amorphous, too full and too rich to be captured in one narrative. Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>
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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy was published in the mid 1750s and can be described as post modern before the term was invented. Its a ramble and regarded as unfilmable.
Enter Frank Cotterell Boyce and Michael Winterbottom assisted by Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan who adapt the book as a film within a film of the book.
Anyone familiar with the BBC series The Trip also directed by Winterbottom and starring Brydon and Coogan as versions of themselves will be familiar with the set up. The both tease, spar, cajole each other and do impressions.
You have scenes relating to the birth of Tristram Shandy and some of its comical and amusing, you have a battle scene with literally tens of people and suddenly the filmmakers manage to get Gillian Anderson on board as Widow Wadnam which leads to an increased budget
As the film goes on, Coogan's personal life comes under scrutiny with a newspaper hack chasing him about a kiss and tell story, Madchester TV stalwart and music mogul Tony Wilson appears as himself giving a testy interview to Coogan and the Stephen Fry drops by as a know it all.
Of course by the latter end the film just fizzles out, as if the actual writer and director ran out of gas and this viewer lost interest. Maybe there was a good reason why the novel was unfilmable.