My House in Umbria

Directed by Richard Loncraine

Starring Maggie Smith, Ronnie Barker, Timothy Spall

Classification: 12

First there was A Year in Provence, then Under the Tuscan Sun, now it’s the turn of Umbria.

Maggie Smith repeats the imperious, vulnerable middle-aged spinster she has been playing for the past 40 years.

The film begins with a bang as a terrorist bomb goes off on the train carrying expatriate novelist Emily Delahunty on a shopping expedition to Milan.

It continues with an extended whimper when, in hospital, the Dame invites the three injured survivors of her compartment – a retired British general (Ronnie Barker gives a decent performance), a dubious German journalist, and a traumatised eight-year-old American orphan (Emmy Clarke) – to convalesce at her villa in Umbria.

The film comes to an end in a very feeble way.