10 Underrated Comedy Performances In Film

Okay, okay, I know, I know. He was nominated for a BAFTA and won a Critic’s Circle Award and was selected for all sorts of other gongs but let’s be honest with ourselves for a second; Paddington 2 is a perfectly formed, infectious family adventure, and Hugh Grant steals every scene he is in. And even some he isn’t in. It’s a performance that, were comedy treated with the same grovelling deference as drama, would have won Grant every award going.

Always adept at comedic performances, before 2017 Grant had never truly elevated much above either of his niches; the stammering, floppy-haired rom-com heroes of Four Weddings or Love Actually, and the self-absorbed man-children of Bridget Jones Diary and About a Boy. But here he gives a career-high turn, and it’s magnificent.

Portraying a faded West End star, Grant takes on the role as the film’s intensely arrogant villain Phoenix Buchanan. Seemingly given free rein to be as camp as humanly possible, Grant relishes every moment he has on camera, and in doing so gives us one of the most delicious bad guys in recent memory.

Disguising himself variously as a medieval knight, a bearded cockney, a bald-capped train conductor and, wonderfully, a nun, Phoenix frames our furry hero for theft and terrorises his adopted family, all to gain possession of a book that leads to a treasure trove. Which he can then use to fund his one-man-show. Yes. That’s the motive.

See? Gloriously camp, isn’t it.

Stand-Out Moment: At his sentencing, the judge tells Buchanan he is “a disgrace to the noble profession of acting.” Phoenix’s reaction – wailing into a hanky as if it’s the worst thing he could possibly hear – I would happily watch on loop for an hour.