SYNOPSIS
Mavis Davis had had enough! Her younger son, Eddie, wears headphones all day and almost electrocutes her. Her older boy, Wally is gay – lives in a huge over-ripe concrete banana. Her husband… well, her husband, Roly Davis (Dad) has turned into a turnip, a blind, motionless, emotionless vegetable.
So Mavis is off an around the world package trip. However, when Dad finds out she has been joined on her trip by their hated next door neighbour, Alec Moffatt, long dead passions begin to stir. Blind, senile old Dad decides to chase his wife around the world.
One problem… no money. Solution, Dad’s two sons, Eddie and Wally, allured by beautiful Nurse Ophelia Cox, decide to take him round the world in his own backyard. Using sounds, smells and sensations, the trip fabricate a convincing world trip – too convincing. Dad has such a good time his eyesight, health and lust for life improve alarmingly.
What happens when fantasy and reality collide; see “Around The World in Eighty Ways”.
“Farce, far from being sturdy, is the most delicate of critters. Farce must make eminently good sense, or the day is lost. Australia’s barmy “Around the World in 80 Ways” is certainly that, and once it gets its sea legs it is fiendishly funny farce indeed, and perhaps a little more: farce with a heart to its looniness.
The film comes from the certifiably febrile brain of director Stephen MacLean, who also co-wrote it with Paul Leadon. In a sparkling cast, Philip Quast’s Wally and Allan Penney’s Roly are exceptional. The rest are endearing to a fault, particularly the young lovers, Dingwall and Dobrowolska, and the nifty turn by Jane Markey as “Miserable Midge,” the meter maid.
At its core “Around the World” is soft as nougat: It says that old loves are the best; that you can get home again, and that parents should learn to accept their children just as they are. And certainly, that home is where the art is.”
Los Angeles Times
Sheila Benson, Film Critic
STARRING
- PHILIP QUAST – Wally Davis
- ALLAN PENNEY – Roly Davis
- DIANA DAVIDSON – Mavis Davis
- KELLY DINGWALL – Eddie Davis
- ROB STEELE – Honest Alec Moffatt
- GOSIA DOBROWOLSKA – Nurse Ophelia Cox
CREW
- DIRECTOR – Stephen MacLean
- PRODUCERS – David Elfick, Steve Knapman
- SCRIPTWRITERS – Stephen MacLean, Paul Leadon