BEATS OF LOVE
170. Nuts in May VHS
MIKE LEIGH'S wonderfully improvised comedy shows when we're out in the open air, things can get absurd and Reformy.
Keith and his utterly infantile wife Candice Marie, although insular and odd, navigate the Dorset coastline as laid out in a strict itinerary. The camp-site tests their endurance when despite them pitching their tent first interloper Ray, with his annoying radio, invades their sense of idyll. In Reform party fashion they move their tent.
Utterly baffled that Ray has to endure something he dislikes getting a career as a PE teacher, Candice Marie sends her husband into a jealous rage. His real problems begin with working-class Brummies Finger and Honky. First, they want to shag despite being noisily pissed up, which angers Keith, who lies in a sexless state having just refused to kiss his wife's fluffy toy cat Prudence goodnight, then Finger wants to start a fire to make breakfast. Lighting fires is against the rules.
Rules dictate everything for Keith. Who in a state of gammon faced abandonment hurls in anger the would be firewood, a tree branch, in Finger's direction. The aftermath of which sees Keith and Candice Marie leaving the campsite. Again, righteous anger without resolution is very Reform.
Ironic then that Keith, in trying to impose the same conditions of his suburban life on his trip, blocked his rear-view mirror by overfilling his Morris Minor and attracted police attention. The police also discover his spare tyre was bald. Breaking the rules. Reflecting the hypocrisy of Reform, who much prefer imposing rules that don't apply to them.
Doubly ironic is the fact that characters like Keith and Candice Marie, no matter how unwittingly Reformy they behave, would never vote for such an unruly party. Finger and Honky probably would. 
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