Comfort and Joy

Bill Forsyth's film follows a Glasgow radio presenter whose life empties out when his girlfriend packs up and leaves one morning. Alan Bird, played by Bill Paterson, witnesses an ice cream van being attacked and finds himself in the middle of a turf war between two Italian families. The comedy lies exactly in that disproportion: a man filling the hole in his own life by trying to settle a quarrel that has nothing to do with him. The reality behind the subject is far darker than the film. Glasgow's ice cream wars were run by gangs using the vans as a front for selling drugs. The fire that killed driver Andrew Boyle and his family happened in April 1984, and the film opened four months later. Paterson later put it plainly: it was not a good moment to launch a light-hearted look at the Glasgow ice cream business. Mark Knopfler wrote the music, having scored Forsyth's Local Hero the year before. Who it is for: viewers who enjoy Scottish humour and Forsyth's quiet, melancholy register. Who it is not for: anyone expecting broad comedy or a fast-moving plot.