Photo Archive: 'Mr Jolly Lives Next Door'

To celebrate our delight in discovering that Channel 4 have dumped a steaming load of prime Comic Strip material - Funseekers, Bad News Tour, the sublime Eddie Monsoon - A Life? - onto Youtube for free, ERH has hit the files and dug up this winsome still from what might well be the staggeringly hit-and-miss troupe's finest hour, Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door.

Directed by the terminally grumpy Stephen Frears in between the fruity chill of Prick Up Your Ears and the icy frippery of Dangerous Liaisons, Mr Jolly sees the director cut loose with an aberrant, sleazy, gin-soaked little film that takes in celebrity assassination, fluffy bunny rabbits, blue-collar transvestism, Tom Jones and Camden Lock genocide, whilst simultaneously delivering a searing indictment of 1980's UK licensing hours.

It's been quite some time since anyone has had any cause to say so, but Channel 4, we hereby salute you!

'I feel sick. I don't know where the fuck I am. I think I had too much to drink last night.
My life is like a Red Lion, full of drunken Irishmen and gaming machines.
Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God!
... give me another scotch, you bastards.'
                                   Eddie Monsoon, The Vivisectionist (Unpublished Manuscript)