Richard Lester’s adaptation of the play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus is a truly bonkers curio. Set in a blasted post-apocalypse Britain where roughly 20 people have survived (all of whom steadfastly avoid discussing what has happened), the film features an impressive pantheon of 1960s British talent – Milligan, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Ralph Richardson, Arthur Lowe, Michael Hordern, Marty Feldman, Harry Secombe – attempting to carry on as normal with bicycle-powered public transport and the ever-present threat of mutation.
Lowe turns into a parrot, Moore turns into a sheepdog, and Richardson wearily endures his inexorable transformation into the titular rented accommodation. As much Godot as Goon Show, it’s bleak, dark, surreal, silly, and truly unique.