Up There

I hope he doesn’t take offence, but British actor Burn Gorman was born to play a dead man. He’s got such a brilliantly cadaverous face – all carved-out cheekbones and deathly pale (Gorman was the MI5 agent spying on the Beeb in the first series of ‘The Hour’). So, he’s perfectly cast in this dry, downbeat-funny, low-budget Brit debut from director Zam Salim. Gorman is Martin, who is having a bit of bother in the afterlife. Being dead, it turns out, is not as much fun as it’s cracked up to be in the movies. No, you don’t get to haunt old houses. In this purgatory, death is like life – only a bit more crap.The goal is to get ‘up there’ (we never get to glimpse the place). Before that, you’re stuck on Earth but can’t be seen by the living. Martin works in limbo’s arrivals lounge (think Croydon job centre) looking after ‘fresh meat’. There’s plenty to enjoy in the absurd quirkiness of ‘Up There’ but, as an elongated adaptation of Salim’s own short film, its pleasures do start to wear thin.