Britannia Hospital

Infobox_Film
name = Britannia Hospital


director = Lindsay Anderson
producer = Clive Parsons
Davina Belling
writer = David Sherwin
starring = Leonard Rossiter
John Moffatt
Fulton Mackay
Joan Plowright
Robin Askwith
editing = Michael Ellis
distributor = EMI
released = 1982
runtime = 116 min
language = English
budget =
music = Alan Price
awards =
imdb_id = 0083694
preceded_by = "In Celebration"
amg_id = 1:7148

"Britannia Hospital" is a 1982 feature film by British director Lindsay Anderson. A black comedy, it targets the National Health Service, and by extension, modern Britain.

Plot summary

The story involves the opening of a new wing at Britannia Hospital. The Queen Mother is due to arrive, and the administrator, Potter (Leonard Rossiter) is confronted with demonstrators protesting against an African dictator who is a VIP patient, striking ancillary workers (opposed to the exotic gastronomic demands of the hospital's private patients) and a less-than-cooperative Professor Millar (Graham Crowden), the head of the new wing.

Rather than cancel the royal visit, Potter decides to go out and reason with the protestors. He strikes a deal with the protest leader - the private patients of Britannia Hospital are to be ejected and, in return, the protestors allow a number of ambulances into the hospital. However, unbeknown to the protestors, these ambulances actually contain the Queen Mother and her entourage.

Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) is now a reporter and intends to film a documentary about Britannia Hospital and its dubious practices. He manages to get into the hospital and starts to investigate Millar's sinister scientific experimentation, including the murder of a patient Macready (Alan Bates). As mayhem ensues outside Travis is also murdered and his head used as part of a grim Frankenstein-like experiment which goes hideously wrong. However Millar quietens the protestors and invites them to witness the demonstration of his Genesis Project, in which he claims he has perfected mankind. In front of the assembled audience of Royalty and commoners Genesis is revealed - a brain wired to machinery. Genesis is given a chance to speak and, in a robotic voice, utters the "What a piece of work is a man" speech from Hamlet, until it continuously repeats the line 'And how like a God'.

Background

The film forms the third in a loose trilogy of films by Anderson, written by David Sherwin and featuring Malcolm McDowell as the rebellious schoolboy-cum-everyman Mick Travis from "if...." and "O Lucky Man!". In in this film he is not a central character. Another recurring character is Doctor Millar (Crowden) who had also made an appearance as a mad geneticist in "O Lucky Man".

Cast (partial list)

* Leonard Rossiter as Vincent Potter
* Brian Pettifer as Biles
* John Moffatt as Greville Figg
* Fulton Mackay as Chief Superintendent Johns
* Vivian Pickles as Matron
* Barbara Hicks as Miss Tinker
* Graham Crowden as Professor Millar
* Jill Bennett as Dr. MacMillan
* Peter Jeffrey as Sir Geoffrey
* Joan Plowright as Phyllis Grimshaw
* Robin Askwith as Ben Keating
* Dave Atkins as Sharkey
* Malcolm McDowell as Mick Travis
* Mark Hamill as Red
* Richard Griffiths as Cheerful Bernie
* Arthur Lowe as hospital patient
* Alan Bates as Macready
* Dandy Nichols as Florrie
* Betty Marsden as Hermione
* Liz Smith as Maisie
* T.P. McKenna as Theatre Surgeon
* Michael Medwin as Theatre Surgeon
* Valentine Dyall as Mr Rochester

External links

*imdb title|id=0083694|title=Britannia Hospital
* [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/492297/index.html BFI Screenonline article]