Bill

[yogi]

I didn't really like this, it just wasn't funny enough.

It constantly reminds you of Monty Python, even having its own 'bring out your dead' sequence and falls a long, long way short, though I guess that isn't a fair comparison. But the same team were behind the very good Horrible Histories and it's not as good as that either, something is missing, mainly laughs.

It's a bad sign when even the trailer stuggles to make it look entertaining. At least there was good company at the screening, otherwise.... 4/10

[kevinknapman]

The Horrible Histories team tackle the fertile ground of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan era with exactly the right amount of silliness and serious attention to detail that you'd expect in their first big screen outing.
So gags about bums and lady parts are skilfully woven around clever references and nods to real historical events. That an air of mystery still surrounds elements of the life of both Shakespeare and Christopher Marlow gives the writers Ben Willbond and Laurence Rickard free reign to mix in a story of a Spanish plot to kill Queen Elizabeth. The much discussed idea of the true authorship of the plays is also tackled in a smart and interesting way without being too controversial (Shakespeare purists shouldn't be too upset).
Also as this is by the Horrible Histories team, much of the pleasure comes from seeing just who is going to play which part. Highlights include Laurence Rickard's Walsingham, Martha Howe-Douglas' Body Collector and...er Simon Farnaby's Sausage. Though real life husband and wife Helen McCrory and Damian Lewis are welcome additions to the team as Queen Elizabeth and Sir Richard Hawkins.
Crucially though it's just very funny. Coming across as a natural (if slightly more family-oriented) successor to the Monty Python films. So though it is clearly indebted to those films (and to a certain extent Shakespeare in Love unsurprisingly) it is also very much filtered through the sensibility of the Horrible Histories brand.
Fans of that and Yonderland should need no persuading to check this out.

[scootermcc]

Was this meant to be a kids film?

Most of the audience at a nearly empty Glasgow screening looked like they were lucky to be of school age. Some of the jokes I thought were in bit close to the bone, refrences to sexual wrestling and the phallic torture device that they kept waving about surely seemed a bit adult in humour.


I always worry when I see a film having a release date 6 months after it was first meant to come out (Bill was first due for release in March this year). Started off okay but really struggled to keep what little humour it had going.

5/10

[moggers]

More of an older kids film I think, Miss 12 laughed most of the way through, Master 6 wasn't that bothered. I thought it was fine but we watch horrible histories a lot in this house so we're quite used to the gags. Loved Helen McCrory as Queenie. I was quite surprised at the low turnout for this in Glasgow and there was one childless couple who walked out...not sure what they were expecting lol!

[cliveas]

Very silly and very amusing. Amusing rather than hilarious but consistently so throughout. Full of anachronisms and Shakespearean and theatrical in jokes. Loved the take on the authorship of his plays (done before, but still funny) and the constant use of bits of his plays. Also the use of theatrical techniques such as the playing of multiple parts by the actors. Perfect undemanding fayre for a Sunday morning.