Laid Off

Most comedies about the afterlife are as spirit-thin as their protagonists. Laid Off embraces this, and delivers a delightful, offbeat black comedy about the social ineptitudes and ongoing life of the departed. Its like Rab C Nesbitt had a heart transplant with Bruno Ganz in Wings Of Desire.

John-Paul Hurley as the recently deceased Martin, gives a delightful, mesmerising sad-sack performance as our narrator and storyteller. His world-weariness is dryly hilarious and believable in the same breath. The biggest initial worry of entering the afterlife is not the big question of Does God Exist?, rather how quickly his widow gets over his death, subsequent to her discovery of his porn collection - "I really was going to throw that out one day!".

How does one fill their days when no one can see or hear you? (And yes - you can't walk through walls!) There are support organisations for the deceased, but they are populated by Nathan Barley-esque perpetual motion morons - who seem to be everywhere.

Zam Salim's direction and control of his short tale is exemplary, both in terms of keeping his subject concise and clear, but also never letting the story become boring or ineffective. Bravo!