Product Details

• Actors: Richard Kane, Joolia Cappleman, Philip Davis, Adam Norton, Simon Chandler
• Directors: Mike Leigh
• Writers: Mike Leigh
• Producers: Margaret Matheson
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Water Bearer Films
• VHS Release Date: November 11, 1998
• Run Time: 80 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302900263
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #461,594 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deliciously witty, December 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Who's Who [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This brilliant satire of the British cultural obsession with hereditary titles and social status. Could only have been written by a strident socialist or republican. Set in early 80's Thatcher's Britain, the scene opens with the scores of "Another Country" as the camera looms in on neurotic Nigel ( Simon Chandler ) and bumbling Giles (Adam Norton ) both socially inept upper class former school friends now stockbrokers sharing a cramped apartment in London's West End. The real clue to how ludicrous and corrupt the class system is . Will come through the pathetic obsequiousness to ones 'betters" demonstrated in their cowering lower middle class clerical assistant "Alan Dixon" played with shocking credibility by Richard Kane. Here is a man who worships the monarchy and who's very existence is dependent on seeking approval from their disdainful eyes whilst scouring for their entries in DeBrett's peerage the aforementioned "who's who" of the title. Dixon is so smitten with monarchy and all its trappings that he keeps graphs on a wall in an upstairs bedroom. The claustrophobic terraced house he owns with his wife April (Joolia Capplemana) A dim witted impractical cat breeder. with cardboard thin walls is slyly contrasted against the stately homes of England he admires from afar

The real magic of this understated film is the way in which it makes you feel pity for Alan Dixon even whilst you are irritated by his obvious crawling to a despicable class system. Which openly sneers at him and negates his very existence. With one blow the director Mike Leigh is able to depict with scathing mockery. The nerve racked aloof ness of an upper-class dinner party in which notoriously overcooked hideous British food is greeted as if it were gourmet cuisine. In fact the total lack of style or joy in the lives of both upper-class and lower class in England is portrayed as a social comment on the legacy of the corrosive tyranny of the class system. Mike Leigh's great love of the working class comes in the form of the easy going cameraman Desmond Shakespeare (Sam Kelly) who's surname has not driven him to create a bogus lineage to his famous namesake. No one else is free to express themselves without the restricted protocol of their class. There are moments of riveting subtle observational genius such as the scene in which the office smoothie Anthony (Graham Seed) is sexually rebuffed by a British born secretary Samya (Souad Faress) who he call's a foreigner. This is a film that you will watch again and again.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Is this Grown ups film?, September 20, 2008

By 

Scouser "Kris1976melo" (Liverpool (England UK)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who's Who (DVD)

Just wondering if this is the Grown up film? it got the same cast on the cover thats is in the film? just the name different....