The Bed Sitting Room (1969)

The film is set on the third or fourth anniversary of a war which lasted two minutes and twenty-eight seconds, including signing the peace treaty. Three years after the nuclear holocaust, several survivors wander amidst the debris of London. Penelope is 17 months pregnant and lives with her lover, Alan, and her parents on a tube train in what remains of the London Underground.

Set in post-nuclear-holocaust England, where a handful of bizarre characters struggle on with their lives in the ruins, amongst endless heaps of ash, piles of broken crockery and brick, muddy plains, and heaps of dentures and old boots. Patriotically singing "God Save Mrs. Etheyl Shroake, Long Live Mrs. Etheyl Shroake", they wander through this surrealistic landscape, forever being warned by the police to "keep moving", and prone to the occasional mutation into a parrot, cupboard, or even, yes, a bed sitting room with "No Wogs" scrawled in the grime on it's windows. In particular, this story revolves around the odd "love story" of a girl who lives with her parents in one compartment of a London Underground train, the commuter in the next compartment, and the doctor they meet after returning above ground in search of a nurse for the heavily pregnant girl.

Rita Tushingham as Penelope
Dudley Moore as Police Sergeant
Harry Secombe as Shelter Man
Arthur Lowe as Father
Roy Kinnear as Plastic Mac Man
Spike Milligan as Mate
Ronald Fraser as The Army
Jimmy Edwards as Nigel
Michael Hordern as Bules Martin
Peter Cook as Police Inspector
Ralph Richardson as Lord Fortnum of Alamein
Mona Washbourne as Mother
Richard Warwick as Alan
Frank Thornton as The BBC
Dandy Nichols as Mrs Ethel Shroake
Jack Shepherd as Underwater Vicar
Marty Feldman as Nurse Arthur



The Bed Sitting Room (1969)