Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #51013 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-08-25
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Full Screen, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 96 minutes

Special Features

• Cast biographies
  
• Jack Rosenthal biography

DVD Technical Information:

• Region code: All
  
• Language: English

Synopsis
THE KNOWLEDGE stars Nigel Hawthorne, Michael Elphick, Mick Ford, and Gary Holton as four men attempting to pass the "Knowledge of London" exam to become cab drivers. As they prepare for the test, they learn more than expected.

From the Back Cover

There are over 13,000 taxi-drivers in London. And in order to become taxi-drivers, every single one of them (like every one of their predecessors for over 140 years) has to pass an exam called "The Knowledge of London". The Knowledge is the story of four men and their attempts to become cab-drivers. In the process, they acquire a different kind of knowledge: knowledge of themselves and of those closest to them, of their strengths and weaknesses, of what they want from life – and how knowledge itself is the means of getting it… Starring Maureen Lipman, Lesley Joseph, Nigel Hawthorne and Michael Elphick, the characters in "The Knowledge" are all fictitious – but the official ordeal they undergo and the incidents that occur during the examination process are all entirely factual and true.

Customer Reviews

JACK ROSENTHAL'S BEST
It would be hard to deny that this is Mr Maureen Lipman's best comedy drama. Every real-life London cabbie has seen this film and knows it off by heart. "Manor House to Gipton Square."

Would-be cabbies recite routes verbatim like children learning their times tables. Grown men are reduced to tears in the interrogation sessions, called "appearances." The dry, sardonic humour of Mr Burgess "I won't take offence if anyone here decides to call me 'Sir,'" the examiner, has caused this reader to burst into uncontrolled laughter and replay the appearance scenes over and over again.

This is one film that you will want to watch over and over again.

Nigel Hawthorne at his best.
Essential viewing for the potential "Black Cabbie".So real, a real rollercoaster of life.Comedy, strife and dissappointment.This film has it all.A defininate must see.