Ian La Frenais

In Porridge (1974), Norman Stanley Fletcher wants the last word, especially when he has little say over anything else. Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement make that wish enough to sustain an exchange, because they are precise about what Fletcher wants and what the person facing him knows. Ronnie Barker makes each small advantage seem worth the effort. The writing lets us follow the manoeuvre without stopping to explain it.

The partnership began with the BBC sitcom The Likely Lads (1964), establishing their interest in working-class Northern life. By Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1983), they were writing about British workers abroad, still finding comedy among people obliged to spend time together. Their later feature work brought the same partnership to The Commitments (1991) and the heist film The Bank Job (2008).

Familiarity has a cost in Porridge: Fletcher's contests with the warders can become predictable. Yet Clement and La Frenais usually keep the immediate business clear, and an excuse changes according to who must be persuaded. Richard Beckinsale helps keep the company worth having when the contest itself holds fewer surprises. The kindness works because it grows out of paying attention to what the characters want, however little that might amount to outside the prison.

The Commitments, directed by Alan Parker and adapted from Roddy Doyle's novel, gives that skill a practical job: getting a soul band together in Dublin. Doyle shares the screenplay credit with Clement and La Frenais, and the auditions let different personalities emerge through the same task. We laughed more than we expected at the auditions, where the business of finding musicians gives each encounter a reason to happen. At times, though, the script collects funny encounters faster than it develops the people in them. Start with Porridge; leave The Commitments for an evening when the songs matter as much as the conversation.