"...So, too, Debbie Isitt, who carved her reputation on stage with a series of blacker-than-thou comedies with twists that made your eyes water. Her cracking first feature film, Nasty Neighbours, finished just two weeks before she gave birth to her daughter, is a ripping yarn from the depths of flock-wallpaper suburbia.

Phil Daniels and Rachel Fielding are the neighbours from hell. They are flash gits: rude, aggressive, upwardly mobile and noisy in bed, Ricky Tomlinson and Marion Bailey are the long-suffering elders of this particular cul-de-sac. He's a hopeless double-glazing salesman up to his eyeballs in debt: his wife is quite mad. They hanker after the old neighbours who've moved to Australia. They want to make an impression on the new.

The voyeuristic eye of a documentary camera - easily the most prolific cinematic gambit in this Venice festival - plots the satisfyingly awful breakdown of relationships. What's exciting is the improvisational edge of aspirations locked in mortal combat.

Festivals can be cruelly revealing. If there's a single performance I will take away from Venice, it's Tomlinson's interfering old bastard. Crazed with jealousy, unhinged by his wife's loop-to-loop tape of songs by the Gypsy Kings and left behind by society, Tomlinson's little Englander is a fully fledged monster. The truly horrifying bit is that your heart goes out to him."