The Ladykillers

Back for another bite: why classic 70s and 80s screen classics are new stars of the stage

The boat in Jaws, the flashy car in Back to the Future, and the kitchen in The Good Life: it seems we all want to recapture those moments – but in the theatre

Vanessa Thorpe Arts and media correspondent

25, Sep, 2021 @4:58 PM

The Ladykillers review – a comic crime caper that still kills

Sixty-five years later the classic from Ealing Studios is still subversive, hilarious and distinctly English

Peter Bradshaw

23, Oct, 2020 @12:00 PM

My Mother Said I Never Should/The Ladykillers review – love trumps farce

Charlotte Keatley’s 1987 work about mothers and daughters is a wonderful gesture of empathy, while a staging of the Ealing black comedy fails to find the funny

Mark Fisher

30, May, 2019 @10:38 AM

The Ladykillers review – all-female crooks hijack Ealing caper

Casting women as the criminal gang heightens the artifice and adds a poignant twist to Graham Linehan’s adaptation of the classic film comedy

Helen Meany

20, Jun, 2017 @10:51 AM

The Ladykillers review – the greatest comedy caper

Alec Guinness’s thieves without honour are no match for Katie Johnson’s Mrs Wilberforce in this allegory of postwar Britain

Philip French

25, Oct, 2015 @7:30 AM

The Ladykillers review – classic caper looks a little careworn

With its cluttered set and ungainly action, the latest version of the Ealing comedy feels like a remake of a remake

Alfred Hickling

20, Apr, 2015 @2:37 PM

Why it's the theatre that's given us a Ladykillers to die for

Peter Bradshaw: Graham Linehan's stage adaptation of The Ladykillers succeeds where the Coen brothers failed: it's actually funny

Peter Bradshaw

22, Dec, 2011 @11:34 AM

My favourite film: Readers' comments – week seven

We round up the cream of your responses to last week's films – The Goonies, Together, The Ladykillers, Night of the Hunter and Star Trek II – The Wrath of Kahn

Guardian film

21, Dec, 2011 @5:12 PM

How Graham Linehan dynamited The Ladykillers

How do you adapt classic film The Ladykillers for the stage? First, blow the whole thing up, writes Graham Linehan

Graham Linehan

18, Dec, 2011 @9:59 PM

My favourite film: The Ladykillers

Catherine Shoard falls for the warm wit of Ealing Studios' 1955 comedy about dark deeds and a not-so-doddery old dear

Catherine Shoard

07, Dec, 2011 @5:45 PM

Graham Linehan on staging The Ladykillers

Now more than 50 years old, Ealing comedy The Ladykillers is one of Britain's best-loved films. So how will Graham Linehan, writer of The IT Crowd and Father Ted, rework it for the theatre? By Euan Ferguson

Euan Ferguson

29, Oct, 2011 @11:06 PM