Mass Regicide makes for a surprisingly amiable comedy.

A film that I have fond if faded memories of seeing a couple of times at my local 2 Screen (yes, two whole screens!) ABC cinema when it was released, King Ralph starts with the kind of absurdity that almost belongs in a Monty Python sketch and almost certainly wouldn’t get past the concept stage these days outside of a Family Guy cutaway pitch: the entire extended British royal family is wiped out in a freak accident, leaving only one man standing between the United Kingdom and a constitutional crisis – a Vegas lounge singer whose grandmother had an affair with an itinerant duke while she was a hotel maid.

Goodman’s Ralph is a walking clash of cultural stereotypes. Watching him bumble through royal protocol with all the grace of a man trying to eat soup with a fork is where the film finds its best laughs. It’s broad, it’s goofy, and it leans into every possible comedic beat of a brash, beer-swilling American being shoehorned into a world of cucumber sandwiches and rigid decorum.

But what keeps King Ralph from being a one-note joke, aside from the immense, irresistible likeability of Goodman, is the sheer class of its supporting cast. Peter O’Toole, effortlessly dignified as the king’s private secretary, plays the perfect straight man, exuding weary patience while barely concealing his horror at Ralph’s every faux pas, especially his budding romance with exotic dancer Miranda (Doctor Who‘s Camille Coduri). If O’Toole provides the film with a sense of nobility, John Hurt counterbalances it with gleeful villainy. As the scheming Lord Graves, Hurt delivers a performance so venomous it could curdle cream, dripping with disdain for the oaf who’s usurped the throne he believes should be his by birthright. His snide aristocratic scheming adds just enough threat to keep the story moving, even if it’s clear the film is more interested in pratfalls and packing out the cast with great British character actors (Richard Griffiths, Julian Glover, Leslie Phillips, Judy Parfitt and Joely Richardson all join in the succession silliness) than palace intrigue.

King Ralph feels like a film that couldn’t be made today. Not merely because of its regicidal set-up and obliviously naive approach to constitutional politics but mainly because the idea of a boorish, burger-munching America moron ascending undeservedly to head of state isn’t really funny anymore. Taken as a product of its time – despite this film’s release 1991 (yes, this is a nineties film even if it feels mid-eighties through and through) wasn’t quite the annus horribilis the following year would be for the Royals – it’s an amiable bit of wish-fulfillment, a film that suggests, perhaps optimistically, that even the most out-of-place person can still find a way to lead with heart.

Is King Ralph a masterpiece? Hardly. But as a broad, big-hearted comedy with a ridiculous premise and a cast far better than the material probably deserves, it delivers exactly what it promises. It’s not about satirising the monarchy or dissecting class divides – it’s about watching John Goodman try (and mostly fail) to wear a crown without dropping it. And honestly, for a Saturday afternoon at the movies, that’s enough.