The film is set in London on the third or fourth anniversary of a nuclear war which lasted two minutes and twenty-eight seconds, including signing the peace treaty. Three years after the nuclear holocaust, the survivors wander amidst the debris. Penelope is 17 months pregnant and lives with her lover, Alan, and her parents in a tube train on the Circle line. Other survivors include Captain Bules Martin, who holds a "Defeat of England" medal, as he was unable to save Buckingham Palace from disintegration during the war. Lord Fortnum is fearful that he will mutate into the "bed sitting room" of the title. Mate is a fireguard, except that there is nothing left to burn. Shelter Man is a Regional Seat of Government who survived the war in a fallout shelter and spends his days looking at old films and reminiscing about the time he shot his wife and his mother as they pleaded with him to let them in his shelter. Similarly, the "National Health Service" is the name of a male nurse, although overwhelmed by the extent of the war. Finally, there are two policemen, who hover overhead in the shell of a Morris MinorPanda car that has been made into a makeshift balloon, and shout "keep moving" at any survivors they see to offset the danger of them becoming a target in the unlikely event of another outbreak of hostilities. Lord Fortnum travels to 29 Cul de Sac Place and actually does become a bed-sitting room. Penelope's mother is provided with a death certificate, after which she turns into a wardrobe. Penelope is forced to marry Martin because of his "bright future", despite her love for Alan. Her father is initially selected to become Prime Minister due to "his inside leg measurements," but unfortunately, he mutates into a parrot and is eaten due to the starvation conditions that prevail. Penelope finally gives birth, but her monstrous mutant progeny dies. It emerges that Martin is impotent, so he yields marriage consummation to Alan. Penelope has a second child, which is normal, and there is an indication of hope for the future of the country amidst the devastation when it transpires that a team of surgeons have developed a cure for the mutations involving full-body transplant. Finally, a military band pays homage to Mrs. Ethel Shroake of 393A High Street, Leytonstone, the late Queen's former charwoman, and closest in succession to the throne.
After completing Petulia, Richard Lester had intended his next film to be Up Against It, which was written by playwright Joe Orton, but Orton was murdered shortly before production. Lester offered this to United Artists as a replacement. It was filmed between May and July 1968, mainly in and around Chobham Common. When the executives at United Artists saw the film, they hated it, and it was shelved for a year, only getting its first release at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1969. It wasn't released in the UK until March 1970. The Bed Sitting Room would be the last film released by United Artists' foreign film arm Lopert Pictures Corporation, which folded in 1970.
Set design
The absurdity of the film extends even to the settings. One scene is shot beside a pile upon which a British pottery firm had been throwing rejected plates since World War II. Another set of the film is a mock triumphal arch made of appliance doors, beneath which a Mrs. Ethel Shroake, the closest in line for the throne, is mounted on a horse. Even the opening credits have a touch of the absurd, listing the cast not by appearance or alphabetically, but by height.
Release and reception
The film was entered into the 19th Berlin International Film Festival in July 1969, and Richard Lester received the C.I.D.A.L.C. Gandhi Award for it. On 26 March 1970, the film premiered in London at the CineCenta Cinema on Panton Street, which was Europe's first multi-screen cinema. John Russell Taylor in The Times found the film both funny and frightening, but lacking ideas enough for a whole feature film: "Precisely the same objection applies to the film as applied to the play: that it is based on one of those ideas which are fine in themselves but suffer from the drawback that once you have stated them, all you can do is state them again, louder".
