Independent Films, Film Profiles

A Cock and Bull Story
by Michael Winterbottom

A Cock and Bull Story (released in the United States and Australia as Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story) is a 2006 British comedy directed by Michael Winterbottom. It is a film-within-a-film, featuring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing themselves as egotistical actors during the making in a screen adaptation of Laurence Sterne's 18th century novel Tristram Shandy. Gillian Anderson and Keeley Hawes also play themselves in addition to their Tristram Shandy roles.A Cock and Bull Story depicts Steve Coogan playing himself as an egotistical actor with low self esteem and a complicated love life. Coogan is playing the titular role in an adaptation of Tristram Shandy being filmed at a stately home. He constantly spars with actor Rob Brydon, who is playing Uncle Toby, and believes his role to be of equal importance to Coogan's, calling himself the "co-lead".The film incorporates several sequences from the film-within-the-film of Tristram Shandy; these are limited to the story of Tristram's conception, birth and christening; Uncle Toby's experiences at the Battle of Namur; Tristram's sudden and accidental circumcision at the age of three; and the concluding scene of the novel, in which Yorick says "It is a story about a Cock and a Bull - and the best of its kind that ever I heard!"