In 1820 Edinburgh stood at the centre of the modern medical world.  It was a pioneering city in which anatomical demonstrations were the theatre of choice for any discerning academic.  In a world where medical innovation bestowed immediate renowned and prosperity, competition was rife to attract the attention of the King with ever more dramatic displays.  However this theatre was staged in a time before preservation techniques had been truly perfected.  With a corpse as the star of the show and a body shortage depleting the talent pool some progressive doctors would do anything it took to ensure that the show could go on…

William Burke and William Hare are two Irish grifters scratching out a living in the slums of the city.  Surviving on the chickenfeed profit made from their hit and miss cons, the two rely upon income from Mrs Hare’s lodging house to keep them fed, whiskeyed and watered.  Serendipitously the pair encounter a dead tenant ripening under her roof just as the city’s doctors are crying out for cadavers.  Mourning the loss of a jolly good income Burke & Hare set out to dispose of the body and confront the pressing issue of precisely how one crams a grown man into a barrel.  Stopping en route to drink to their misfortune they discover how very lucrative their loss has been and garner a fiver for the poor unfortunate soul into the bargain!  Perceptive William Hare understands the value of their new venture and determines to find a way to replicate the events of the day.  His sweet-natured sidekick understands the value of the coins in his pocket and bumbles along for the ride.

The Williams do their very best to keep the whole unfortunate business away from Mrs Hare leaving her face down in her porridge, and conveniently unaware, to recover from a minor case of severe alcoholism!  A few failed attempts to make a killing do nothing to thwart their ambition, though their initial enthusiasm for grave robbing is somewhat dampened when Ronnie Corbett and his toy soldier militia disrupt their dig and foil their cunning plan.  Mrs Hare eventually sobers up supportive and suspicious and enterprisingly demands her cut.  Meanwhile true love comes calling for William Burke when Isla Fisher’s comely actress Ginny sees in him a future patron.  In the face of such gentle feminine persuasion the two Williams graduate from confidence tricksters to (dis)honest to goodness entrepreneurs.  The siren whisper of cold hard cash grows louder than the voice of their consciences and lo a business is born. Hasn’t it ever been thus?

By choosing to tell the story of Edinburgh’s notorious mass murderers as a romantic comedy of errors, writers Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft and director John Landis have challenged both the expectations of their audience and the strength of their delivery.  The film opens well enough with Bill Bailey lurching on screen as our hooded narrator – a ghoulish Henry Fielding sent to share the terrible story of Burke & Hare with the world.  The rivalry between the medical old and new schools, played out between Tim Curry and Tom Wilkinson, is great fun and the two have a beautiful bitter chemistry.  However not all the casting is as strong.  Simon Pegg, while eminently likeable, is a little too nice to truly convince as a murderer for profit – even playing lesser of two evils Burke – and one wonders if things might have been different had Mr Bailey been persuaded to stick around and take on the meatier role.  Andy Serkis too seems ill at ease, though better cast, struggling to inject true depth into manipulative Hare.  His darkness is diminished by Pegg’s earnest face and “what me?” wackiness and the production tips off kilter in the wake of their mismatch.

Happily there are some excellent early examples of toe-curling, bone-crunching, death and here the two are given the chance to shine.  My personal highlight was a deadly threesome perpetrated in bed with Christopher Lee but be reassured there is a body count high enough to satisfy even the most blood thirsty among you!

By the halfway point I was still struggling to engage with Burke & Hare, desperate to find a foothold in the insubstantial story.  I wanted to like it yet struggled in vain.  Somehow the film has taken all the right ingredients and combined them in all the wrong proportions.  I had a sudden flashback to Perfume: The Story of a Murderer – to Monsieur Baldini endlessly, desperately, mixing notes of scent trying to emulate Pelissier’s Amor and Psyche – of grubby Grenouille appearing in his basement workshop and shaking a note-perfect bottle at first attempt.  In craftier hands the story might have been perfection, in these it ever so slightly stinks.

Where Sweeny Todd or Sleepy Hollow were note-perfect in their mastery of the macabre Burke & Hare is tone deaf.  Wrong chords of timing and tone distract the mind’s eye from the sticky footprints of treacle-black guilt and glee left in the wake of Burke and Hare’s crimes and turn your head towards the wacky antics gurning for attention at centre stage.  Packed with some of Britain’s finest actors and a clutch of jaw-dropping cameos it seems a woefully light-hearted way to treat such gorgeously gothic subject matter and a waste of a talented cast.

Undoubtedly Burke & Hare is an unconventional twist on a horrible history.  It offers a vaudeville version of a notorious story and the intention, if not the execution, is worthy of praise.  I can picture it rebranded as a BBC Boxing Day drama – it is unobtrusive and harmless enough.  The fluffy tone, energy and enthusiasm would make an ideal companion for fighting hangovers and digesting leftovers and the sport of cameo spotting is well suited to the Christmas spirit.  As cinema however it falls far short of the mark.

Burke & Hare is released in the UK on 29th October