Working with a brashly theatrical script (the John Antrobus-Spike Milligan play), Lester predictably opens [The Bed Sitting Room] up by spreading the scenes across a vast landscape. But he also insists on the play's theatricality and tries for a visual style that will combine both approaches. (p. 33)

[Lester] succeeds where he failed in How I Won the War. The earlier movie also featured caricatures going through hopefully surrealistic routines, but the director failed to stylize the locations. Thus, the actions and the dialogues … took place against quite ordinary backgrounds. The clash wrecked the movie, made it both unfunny and uninvolving. In The Bed Sitting Room, whose dialogue and acting are far superior, Lester provides settings congruent with his caricatures. Thus, even when they go astray, the actors never look like your lead-brained neighbors shooting 8mm monkeyshines on their front lawn. This fusion of styles is highly unstable. (pp...