Bill (I) (2015)

After reading the recent review taking people who rated this film highly to task, I decided to go back and rephrase my own post. I also knocked my rating down to 7, which I hate to do because I'm a hardcore fan of the Yonderlanders*, but I also don't want to disappoint people who come to Bill expecting Monty Python and the Holy Grail and are horribly disappointed.

No, the Yonderlanders aren't Monty Python. Having a comedic style evolved from performing together in a BBC educational children's show rather than from Oxbridge revues, and being young enough to be the Pythons' grandkids, their style of humor is more millennial: more sharply focused and socially responsible.

This film is probably not the best introduction to the art of the Yonderlanders. It's much slower and more structured than their TV work. Horrible Histories is a slam-bang Sesame Street-style variety show, and Yonderland reminds me of nothing so much as an updated version of the classic Harvey Kurtzman era Mad Comics, packed with so many gags you need to study them with a magnifying glass to catch them all. I think established fans of the Yonderlanders' work will like this and "get" it in a way newcomers probably won't.

*my term for the core group of performer-writers in large part responsible for the brilliant first five seasons of the live action Horrible Histories franchise, who later branched out on their own with the phenomenal comedy series Yonderland and feature film Bill: Matt Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, and Ben Willbond.