There's so much to say about Funny Cow I don't know where to begin. The film is simply not what I expected. Having heard that the likes of Jim Moir (Vic Reeves) and John Bishop had cameos in it, I expected it to be something like a lighthearted Billy Elliot/Full Monty but with stand-up comedy as an empowering way out of economic poverty rather than ballet/stripping. For Funny Cow - the name of Peake's character – it is a way out, though maybe not exactly a route to happiness.
It's actually a very bleak, brutal film in places, which trades equally on northern cliches and comedy cliches. Cobbled back streets? check. Violent dad? check. Alcoholic mother? check. Grimy working men's club featuring half-hearted blokes smoking while they watch a half-hearted stripper? check. Flat caps? probably. The lead character inspired to try stand-up by an ageing, nictotine-stained depressed old hack comic played by Alun Armstrong? check.
The tone is odd too. There are a couple of violent scenes which are almost unwatchable, though maybe that's the intention. And the always-good Stephen Graham plays Funny Cow's father and also her brother, though this is never quite explained - I guess it's just saying that all northern working class men are the same. The same, that is, except for poncy sideburned bookshop owner Angus, played by Paddy Considine, who appears to have modelled his look on Man About The House-era Richard O'Sullivan.
There are plenty of good moments in the film, directed by Adrian Shergold and written by Tony Pitts, who also plays Cow's big brute of a husband Bob. Maxine Peake is never less than totally watchable. But it doesn't quite hold together due, in part to its episodic nature, flashing randomly backwards and forwards. It's never quite clear how big a star Funny Cow has become. In some scenes she seems to be appearing on a television chat show, though we never actually see her career take off apart from seeing her one and only gig in which she storms it (as of course you do when you've never done a professional gig in your life...) with a routine featuring some very 1970s racist and sexist material.
I did like the melancholy score, by Richard Hawley, who also has a gentle musical cameo. And Kevin Eldon pops up, which is always a Good Thing. And Diane 'Philomena Cunk' Morgan pitches in too, which was odd, as I interviewed her a while ago and she said she's been cut out. It was nice though to see Jim Moir/Vic Reeves reference his old pop hit Born Free in his brief cameo. But anyone expecting a hilarious peak behind the wizard's curtain and into the real world of stand-up comedy may well be disappointed.
Funny Cow is out now but The Marvelous Mrs Maisel on Amazon is better.
Maxine Peake is on The Graham Norton show tonight (April 20)
