Berlin International Film Festival 2006

Dir: Robert Altman.

Failed private eye turned stage door keeper Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) fails to recognise a white raincoat-clad stranger, the Dangerous Woman (Virginia Madsen), as the Angel of Death, who has arrived to carry off one of the cast and herald the end of the radio show's seemingly endless run. Despite an amiable nostalgic plot-line, this is really a film about actors and their gossip, as Streep and Tomlin swap memories and anecdotes, before switching on their stage personae to sing sentimental ballads before a live audience. The show's host (Keillor) switches from mouthing cheesey commercials for improbable products, to the homely anecdotes familiar from his world of Lake Wobegon. Backstage, he tells a dozen well worn and contradictory versions of his early days in radio and claims to crave a job where he wouldn't have to talk, were the radio show ever to close. As one of a duo of singing cowboys, Harrelson reels off a skeen of bad jokes, that are all almost funny. The show does come to an end. The theatre is stripped of its fittings. The cast meet up to gossip in a local coffee bar. The end of an era.

It is difficult to watch this film without thinking of Altman's classic 'Nashville', where a similar mix of showmanship and music was laced with political wit and satire. 'A Prairie Home Companion' is a film about affection and familiarity - a pleasure to watch and easy to enjoy. As Denis Potter famously remarked, 'never underestimate the potency of cheap music'.