★★★

In June 2014, WWII Royal Navy veteran, tickling ninety, absconded his Hove nursing home in favour of a cross-Channel jaunt to Normandy. His want was to witness the commemoration of the D-Day landings he participated in seventy years prior and on the very beaches he once marched upon. It’s a charming tale. There’s little by way of drama – Britain was still in the EU back then – but a nation’s imagination was captured. Almost a decade on, Bernard Jordan’s adventure is immortalised in Oliver Parker’s The Great Escaper and by a rather sensational turn from Michael Caine. Having hit ninety himself this year, Caine has intimated the film may be his last. If this is to be, you’d be hard pressed to find a finer final bow from a talent so mighty.