The Bed Sitting Room (film)
1969 film by Richard Lester
The Bed Sitting Room is a 1969 British black comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring an ensemble cast of British comic actors. It was written by John Antrobus based on the 1962 play of the same name by Spike Milligan and himself. The film is an absurdist, post-apocalyptic, satirical black comedy.
Plot
The film is set in London on the third or fourth anniversary of a nuclear war that killed 40 million, and lasted two minutes and 28 seconds, including the time taken to sign the peace treaty. It is not clear who dropped the bomb. Three (or possibly four) years after the nuclear holocaust, the survivors wander amidst the debris. Most characters avoid using the word "bomb" throughout.
Captain Bules Martin, who holds a "Defeat of England" medal as he was unable to save Buckingham Palace from disintegration during the war, is also referred to as Doctor by Lord Fortnum, who asks for a prescription for malnourishment, but fears he's turning into a bed sitting room. When Martin confirms it, Lord Fortnum gets a second opinion from the "National Health Service", a male nurse overwhelmed by the extent of the war's aftermath.
Penelope, who lives in a tube train on the (still functioning) Circle line with her parents, gets caught in bed with her fiancé Alan, who then joins their party.
“The Bed Sitting Room (film)” enters the record as 1969 film by Richard Lester. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sitting, Room and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3204792. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1969 and 1962.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Bed Sitting Room (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.