If You Go Down in the Woods Today

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If You Go Down in the Woods Today
Written by Eric Sykes
Directed by Eric Sykes
Starring Eric Sykes
Robin Bailey
Norman Bird
Glyn Houston
Roy Kinnear
Fulton Mackay
Marc Sinden
Lee Montague
George Sewell
Tony Selby
Anna Dawson
Music by Denis King
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
Production
ProducersDavid Clark
Philip Jones
CinematographyTed Adcock
Running time78 minutes
Original release
Release9 April 1981 (1981-04-09)

If You Go Down in the Woods Today is a British TV film comedy released in 1981, written, directed and starring Eric Sykes, also featuring Fulton Mackay and Roy Kinnear amongst a cast of dozens. The film, produced by Thames TV, was described by Sykes as 'a comedy thriller, an Agatha Christie gone mad!'.

Plot

A Boy Scout troop led by their scoutmaster (Sykes) is on a field trip to a seemingly-peaceful English woodland. However, the woods are actually teeming with strange characters, some of whom turn out to be disguised police officers and others criminals. The police are searching for £2,000,000 in stolen banknotes and hope that the criminals will lead them to them. The criminals, on the other hand, are aware that the police are looking for them and doing their best to avoid betraying the location of their stash. It later transpires that the money is just a smokescreen for a top-secret document that the gang's leader - actually a KGB officer - is trying to smuggle out of the country. Despite an escalation of security in which the police are eventually joined by the army, navy and air force, it is the scoutmaster's chaotic bungling that leads him to discover the money and flush out the ringleader. At the end it is revealed that the scoutmaster was in fact an undercover police officer and that his bungling was a ruse.


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