Mockumentary

This Is Spinal Tap is now such a deserved comedy behemoth that it’s easy to forget how gradual its ascent to generally agreed greatness was. Only over the years did so many lines and scenes from a low-key 1984 mockumentary about a heavy-rock band (amps that ‘go to 11’, a tiny Stonehenge, a classically inspired piece called ‘Lick My Love Pump’) become part of our lives. Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, by contrast, comes amid a loud fanfare – which may be part of the problem, because the result certainly doesn’t live up to expectations that are inevitably sky-high. Then again, the sad truth is that it mightn’t have

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 robot is 7ft tall, excellent at