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Britannia Hospital received, in Britain at least, an extremely hostile
reaction upon its initial release. This is perhaps surprising, given that it
completes Lindsay Anderson's 'Mick Travis' trilogy; the previous two films of which -
If.... (1968) and O Lucky Man! (1973) - had both been critical and, to some
extent, popular successes.
The initial negative reaction might have been because Britannia Hospital is a
very different film from its predecessors. This time, for example, Mick Travis
is no more than a peripheral figure. Further, Britannia Hospital is more
brazenly comic; everything - including its scenes of Cronenberg-style
body-horror - is played for laughs. Indeed, its comedic tone is reinforced by
the presence of some of television's most accomplished comic actors, including
Leonard Rossiter and Fulton Mackay, whose graceful performances also ensure that
Britannia Hospital's more serious core is not submerged by all of the silliness
on display.
What Britannia Hospital shares with its forerunners is a vitriolic sense of
social justice. The hospital of the title acts as a microcosm for all of
(Thatcherite) Britain, and demonstrates the 'powder-keg' nature of a society in
which the privileged classes rub shoulders with the downtrodden. The
institutions and individuals of both the political Left and the Right are held
responsible for the ensuing chaos - patients die in hospital corridors as
hospital-workers go on strike, while policemen viciously club protesters to the
accompaniment of 'God Save the Queen'. This cruel and unforgiving depiction of
human society recalls, at first, the aloof detachment of Anderson's much earlier
O Dreamland (1953).
However, Britannia Hospital's final scene contextualises all that has
preceded it, and serves to reveal the film as the most humane in all of
Anderson's work. When Professor Millar's nightmarish 'Genesis' project - an
exposed, pulsating brain wired to machinery - gives a (literally) soulless
rendition of the "What a piece of work is man..." speech from Hamlet, its failings
are all too apparent. Compared to such an inhumane device, people, in all their
absurdity and with all their faults, are held up as something to be celebrated.
Britannia Hospital thus prompts us to avoid the future predicted by Professor
Millar and his Genesis machine, and, in doing so, makes us ask what moral
choices should be made in order that people might live peaceably together. In
today's world, this question is of increasing relevance; as too is a film that
is brave enough to pose it.
Peter Hoskin
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1. Time off (2:16)
Production stills
