A goofy, non-taxing delight: Brian and Charles reviewed

Brian and Charles is a sweetly funny mockumentary about a lonely Welsh inventor who is not that good at inventing. That said, I reckon his ‘pine cone bag’ would sell pretty well if Vivienne Westwood got behind it. (His ‘trawler fishing net shoes’ would, admittedly, be a tougher proposition.) Then, more by accident than design, he manages to invent a robot, and a friendship develops between the two. This film won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, and while it doesn’t invent much itself – it is essentially Wallace & Gromit in spirit – it is still loveable beyond all measure.

The film is directed by Jim Archer and written by David Earl and Chris Hayward, based on Earl and Hayward’s short film of the same name which, in turn, was based on a stand-up routine. Earl plays Brian who lives in north Wales in a muddy rundown cottage stuffed with junk. He is completely isolated with, most heartbreakingly, a ‘Brian vs Brian’ darts scoreboard – I wonder who wins? – and is feeling especially low after a harsh winter. ‘I struggled but then I thought to myself: “Come on, Brian, time to give yourself a kick up the bottom.’’’ Quite why he’s being followed by a documentary team is unexplained. Anyway, he refocuses on his inventions, like the grandfather clock that will fly over the village to tell everyone the time. That this device doesn’t get off the ground goes without saying. Then one day he comes across a mannequin’s head in a pile of fly-tipped rubbish, which gives him the idea to make a robot companion. The robot, who will call himself ‘Charles Petrescu’, is wonderfully inelegant.