Perfection: The Duke reviewed

The Duke is an old-fashioned British comedy caper that is plainly lovely and a joy. Based on a true story, it’s an account of the 1961 theft of a Goya painting from the National Gallery, stars Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, and is directed by Roger Michell (of Notting Hill fame). Many films have all their ducks in a row yet are somehow disappointing, but this is perfect, capturing the spirit and joie de vivre of the old Ealing comedies. I could probably watch it all day every day for the rest of my life.

Broadbent plays Kempton Bunton, a 57-year-old, working-class Newcastle taxi driver — although he has trouble holding down any kind of job — who has aspirations to be a playwright. We first meet him putting his latest play in the post to the BBC. It’s about ‘the adventures of Susan Christ’, he tells the postmistress, because ‘imagine if Jesus had been born a woman’. We are never invited to laugh at him. The script (by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman) never invites us to do so and in Broadbent’s hands Kempton is endearingly pure of heart rather than delusional. You will find him wholly loveable from the off. I’ll personally refund your ticket price if you don’t. (Not really; just making a point.)

However, his writing is not his main preoccupation. Mostly, he’s preoccupied with his one-man campaign to secure free BBC television licences for old people. ‘Free TV for the OAPs’, reads his placard. He’s refusing to pay his own licence fee on the grounds that he has removed ‘the BBC coil’ from inside his set and can therefore only watch ITV. He even has to serve time for that, becoming something of a local cause célèbre.