Wilt is played by Griff Rhys Jones and Flint by Mel Smith. Jones and Smith, a hugely popular team in Britain, are a classic pair: Jones is lean, lank, with eyes aghast at the horrors of the world. Smith is fat, round, with eyes narrowed to slits of idiot shrewdness. Jones’s Wilt teaches “liberal studies” at a provincial technical college, where his students–apprentice butchers–confuse “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” with “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Flint thinks that Wilt has killed his wife, who’s run away after a spat. The “body” is really an inflatable sex-doll, which leads the intrepid Flint to an emporium of erotica. Pointing to the display of sexual aids, the amazed Flint asks the proprietor: “Do people really buy tartan dildos?” Proprietor: “That’s my thermos.” As you can see, this is comedy for connoisseurs. Messrs. Jones and Smith carry on a noble comic tradition with style.
