The Young Visiters (2003)  Jim Broadbent plays Alfred Salteena   Also featuring Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy, Geoffrey Palmer and Alan Bennett. Written by Patrick Barlow

Plot Summery:  Alfred Salteena (Broadbent) is a bumbling Victorian bachelor who meets a young lady, Ethel on a train and invites her to his London home.  She wishes to see society and meet young men.  Ethel pesters him to go out and meet important people to introduce to her. They travel to see Lord Bernard Clarke (Hugh Laurie) where Alfred realises that he is not "high society" enough to win the beautiful social climber Ethel.  Lord Bernard offers to send him to a training school to help gentlemen "improve themselves", while he "entertains" Ethel at his home.

Patrick's comments:  The film is based on the novel "The Young Visiters (or Mr Salteena's Plan)", published in Britain in 1919 and written by Daisy Ashford who was only 8 years old at the time.

Jim Says: Jim believes the appeal lies in the story's directness, “There are the obvious things like her mis-spellings and using the wrong words that are all delightfully amusing, which we've tried to capture in the piece, but really I think it's just a completely honest view. There is no adult sophistication overlaying it.”

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