Film: Go ahead, Adolf, make my day

There were even more surreal moments during the film’s four-week shoot on the Isle of Man. Harry Enfield, as George VI, invites Hitler (Antony Sher) to dinner. He arrives, with Eva Braun (Miranda Richardson), in his-and-hers top-to-toe black leather; his straight hair is soon fussed over by Mr Teasy-Weasy (James Dreyfus), who gives him a perm. What takes on the appearance of Carry On meets Basil Fawlty is helped along by Leslie Phillips as an aristocratic turncoat and Mackenzie Crook from The Office as an Irish cockney, Jim Charoo — like all those other avuncular types who get to play colourful locals, “one of the good people of England”. With such a cast, and the likes of Rik Mayall, Steve Pemberton and Sally Phillips popping up in tiny parts, this project is a well-armed send-up. Plus Bob Mortimer, as a second footman, of course. There’s always Vic and Bob.

The plot is simple: Britain is about to cave in to the Nazis and do a deal. Slater’s Lieutenant Winston Churchill of the US Marines, who has just single-handedly captured the German Enigma machine, arrives to save us. He is greeted by his funky black assistant, Denzil (Romany Malco), who declares, after high fives: “I’ve come to take your gung-ho ass to London, sir. President’s orders.”

Cavendish, who helped develop the script, says: “It is over the top on purpose. There has to be no room for doubt — this is a spoof.” He warns that if anyone is expecting subtlety or sophistication, they will be disappointed. “If we had tried to make it any other way, there might have been the slightest chance that some people would have actually believed it to be fact,” he says drily. “Just think how we’ve suffered so far.” It doesn’t take much time to stew over that one. The second world war submarine drama U-571, with Matthew McConaughey playing an American officer who discovered the Enigma, was the most blatant. The otherwise excellent Saving Private Ryan was a little hard to take, too: the only reference to the British being involved in D-day at all was the remark “That Montgomery — he is overrated”. And what about our colonial history? The Patriot, with Mel Gibson, cast us as a bunch of psychopaths who would stop at nothing to remain in charge of the United States. The English, in particular, have suffered even more in Oscar-winning films. In Titanic, virtually every Englishman was insufferable, while happy Irish fiddlers and dancers created a wonderful atmosphere in steerage. As for Braveheart, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

“Why is virtually every villain in every American film played by a British actor?” asks Cavendish. “Also, almost every gay, every traitor and every man who reveals weakness. So we’ve had a bit of fun along the way with our film.” He insists that American actors, far from being distressed by the script, actually warmed to it. “They did get the in-joke,” he says. “It is not a criticism of America or the American people, it is a satire on the way American movies represent the past.”

In a house once owned by the Singer sewing-machine family in Paignton, which doubles as Buckingham Palace, Slater can see the irony of his playing a cigar-chomping Churchill in the true American way. Slater, 34, once served 59 days for assault on a former fiancée, as well as drugs- related offences. He has since been in a rehabilitation clinic, and is now clear-eyed and full of self-deprecating humour: “A former jailbird playing Churchill? You couldn’t make it up, could you?” Yet Slater, whose Hollywood roles have not been so frequent in the wake of his wild, bad-boy years, has probably never been better. He has great comic timing and sends himself up, particularly when asked by his sidekick where his clumsy Churchillian phrases come from. “Hell, man, I open my mouth and shit just comes out,” he says. He can also ham up the butt-kicking, gung-ho American style of fighting wars on film.

He does not claim, however, to have instantly tuned in to the script. “When the director originally approached me,” he says, “about a year before we started filming, I thought, ‘Why me?’ It took me a while to get it. I might have fooled him that I got it, but, truthfully, I did not get it at all. It wasn’t until I arrived in England and met people like Vic and Bob, with their style of comedy, that I began to understand.” His lack of understanding also extends to his own life. “I started acting at nine, so I have been in this business for 25 years,” he says. “For most of that time, I didn’t understand what the hell was going on. So I did all sorts of crazy stuff and got myself into trouble on a regular basis. By the time I cleaned up my act, the way people looked at me or wanted to hire me in Hollywood had changed. It feels, in some ways, like I am just getting started.”

The same does not apply to Slater’s 30-year-old co-star, Neve Campbell. She is Canadian-born, with an English sense of humour, and caught the drift immediately. “I was brought up on Blackadder, Monty Python and BBC comedies,” she says. “So I thought the script was hilarious from the moment I read it.” She also watched videos of Harry Enfield and Vic and Bob before arriving for filming.

“My friends in London were freaking out, saying, ‘You are so lucky to be working with those guys.’”

Campbell worked with a dialect coach to perfect her queenly accent, which sounds fresh from the old British film Brief Encounter. “I wanted to play it realistically, even though the part is so silly,” she says. “Princess Elizabeth has so much power, but she has never had a boyfriend and has never been kissed. But despite her innocence, she wants to save Britain and beat those beastly Germans.”

Her character secretly loves Churchill, who at one point gives her a gift with the words: “Stockings — they go on your legs. One hundred per cent nylon. Look great on the back seat of a Chevy.” But when she filmed her very first scene on day one, she almost brought a new meaning to the actor’s first-night rejoinder, “Break a leg”. She went sliding across the shiny wood floor of the dining room. “I went right over, bum on floor, legs in the air,” she says. “The film crew thought that was very funny, so from that day onwards, they always filmed me with something of a smile on their face, perhaps hoping it would happen again.”

Jessica Oyelowo, playing Princess Margaret as a thrill-seeker in constant conflict with her sister, claims she probably has some of the best lines. “I read for Princess Elizabeth first, but then got this,” she says. Oyelowo, 26, gets to deliver lines at her royal sister such as: “Well, go and fight the Germans, Miss Lilli-Perfect-Bitch.” Or there’s her advice on her sister’s crush on Churchill:

“Stop moping and go and shag him.” And a remark to Denzil: “I expect you like jazz, don’t you?” He to her: “Why, because I’m black?” She to him: “Well, yes, actually.”

Oyelowo, sitting in the afternoon sunshine, confesses: “I get to behave appallingly, which I rather enjoy. It is all cheeky, rather than disrespectful. But I am far from like this in real life. I am very religious. So are my husband and my parents. God has given me gifts and talents for a reason, and I may as well use them.”

Vic Reeves, using his gifts too, has had his previous brief scene interrupted by the loud ringing of his mobile phone, hidden under layers of clothes. “Careless, that,” he remarks. “But in real life, I am really a boring English suburban man, with old-fashioned tastes. I love the Terry-Thomas films from the 1950s, which were clever, well-made comedies. As for the new stuff, there’s not much. I like Mike Leigh, but the last film I saw that made me laugh out loud was Naked Gun. Oh, and this one, of course.”

The results are clearly delighting the director, Richardson. “No film crew has laughed more than at the sight and sound of Harry Enfield’s King George,” he asserts. “We did a scene a few days ago with Harry at one end of the table, alongside Leslie Phillips, with Vic and Bob by the door. The door opens and there is Antony Sher, looking ridiculous as Hitler. The wattage of comic power in that room was remarkable.” He also makes no apology for scenes that would possibly produce letters of complaint by the sackful if they were shown on television. “It is a piss-take,” he says bluntly. “All the black guys loved the in-joke of the token black actor in the movie. And there are observations about Irish and French, Germans and Americans — who get slaughtered — that are all very irreverent. But I don’t think any of us should lose any sleep over it.”

At one point in the film, even Sher’s Hitler becomes irritated with the standard American war-film dialogue. “What is this with you Americans?” he asks. “It is f***ing this and f***ing that. Up ze butt, in ze ass. You can’t even say ‘arse’ properly, like the English. It is arse!” But Hollywood, so far, has failed to see the joke. The film lies unsold, and there are no plans for an American release. Oh, dear. We British and our sense of humour...

Churchill: The Hollywood Years opens on September 24; Christian Slater and Mackenzie Crook also appear in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at the Gielgud Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, W1, from September 3