Ever wondered what might happen if the drunken, drug-addled antihero of British cult classic Withnail and I had been forced into a corporate workplace? No? Well thank goodness writer-director Bruce Robinson and creative muse Richard E Grant did exactly that in 1989.

More tragi-comic rage than bittersweet nostalgia trip, How To Get Ahead In Advertising tries stuffing the ills of consumerism into its star’s highly capable mouth in an oddly manic farce that sometimes overplays its hand. By the time that put-upon ad exec Denis Bagley literally rides off into the sunset to strains of ‘I Vow To Thee My Country’, the film has long since succumbed to the same Thatcherite excesses it aims to satirize.

In the tradition of British satire, the film tries to bundle pierside bawdiness and grotesquery with flashes of Monty Python and David Cronenberg to generate a scathing attack on consumerist society. Alas, the Python tendencies dominate its many streaks of social polemic, reminding us of why Robinson’s work is beloved by generations of nineteen year-olds. The film follows hyperactive adman Denis Bagley, played with trademark gusto by Grant, as he struggles to come up with a new campaign for a pimple cream.

Pinioning the average British consumer with the creepy panache of Doctor Who crossed with Don Draper, Bagley bashes out the film’s emotional beats with the subtlety of a new wave 80s track. As he struggles with the guilt of his boringly dystopian career, manipulating minds to buy packaged goods and processed foods, our protagonist cracks under the pressure of his creative block and develops a giant boil, which comes to life and takes control of his body.

The pleasingly madcap premise sets up excellent physical comedy as Bagley navigates workplace crises and personal torment with the classic setups of a 70s sitcom, or indeed those faced by later corporate beta males on The Office. We see him simmering at lunch with his wife Julia (Rachel Ward), clutching the foul-mouthed, Cockney boil to stop it from disturbing the entire restaurant. The boil, incidentally, has a taste for organ music, which accompanies all its glory moments and sets the tone of unapologetic excess. A blast of Saint Saens’ organ concerto marks the boil’s appearance, greeting Bagley with a “hello handsome”.

The boil triumphs in taking over Bagley completely — first with a David Niven moustache and silk smoking jacket, and finally power cruising in the Land Rover to the bombast of Widor’s organ toccata. Alongside these situational setups, Robinson makes great use of Grant’s signature boujie ranting, spouting sexist zingers at machine-gun pace, as boil-Bagley cautions his clients that “what you need is a taut slob, something on foot deodorisers in a brassière”.

Unlike Withnail and I, which dampened self-indulgence with its nostalgic setting in a bygone decade, How To Get Ahead In Advertising strikes a singular note, hammering out references to Big Brother and recurring images of TV and mirrors that feel obvious and familiar. Ironically for a film about a man battling society’s worst impulses, it lacks any comic or emotional counterweight to Bagley and his evil blob. The struggle between likeable, crisis-stricken Bagley offers a somewhat touching, Kafkaesque spectacle. However, once the “Moloch” boil succeeds in its dastardly plan — overtaking Bagley’s body completely and reducing him to a boil on the Bad Moustachioed Bagley's neck — our sympathies with the character end.

The new and improved Bad Bagley facilitates more physical comedy flexing for Grant, technically delightful yet screaming into the void in the absence of any other developed characters. The endless tirades he masterfully delivers — unchecked by a more sober sidekick — begin to stale. Filled thus with saucy images and narrative devices that recall the posho scatology of Samuel Pepys or the Canterbury Tales, the film combines classic British body horror and repression; the boil on Bagley's shoulder acts as a (ho, ho) literal mouthpiece for Robison’s feelings on consumer society, expressed with all the grace and decorum of the creakingly awful dad-joke in the title.

The film veers from psychoanalytic farce towards a broad critique of society. It teeters on the edge of empty vitriol, though wacky lines come thick and fast (from “I’m an expert on tits and peanut butter”, to “I have discovered that brains are being laundered daily!”).

Bagley dominates the film with no emotional counterbalance. Unlike the Alice and Wonderland vision of Camden and the countryside in Withnail, where a supporting cast of drug dealers, farmers and posh uncles enliven the core relationship between its two ‘resting actors’, the relationship between Bagley and boil (an uncredited role for Bruce Robinson) adds an ironic, somewhat narcissistic quality to the filmmaking process. Like Bagley, Robinson is quite literally talking to himself for much of the film, with Grant’s trademark alternation of frenzied nattering and Shakespearean monologue broken up only by the boil’s Cockney interpolations about Communism and shagging.