Paul Elliott’s review published on Letterboxd:
Irene Handl's portrayal of Ada Cresswell, an elderly widow who comes across ageing grave digger Walter Bingley (Walter Pickles) while arranging flowers on her husband's grave, launched a successful yet brief television series between 1970 and 1971. The series followed their impulsive courtship and the early stages of their subsequent marriage. This spin-off film clenches the thinnest of plots revolving around a surprise party organised by their friends and family to celebrate the couples first wedding anniversary.
Handl was a national treasure at the time of her death in 1987, aged 85, and series director Ronnie Baxter, who later helmed the inflammatory series Love Thy Neighbour for Thames Television, keeps the senior citizens love story as warm-hearted as possible. However, series writers Vince Powell and Harry Driver noticeably struggle throughout to find ways to extend the material beyond its commonly thirty-minute runtime.
Commencing with the theme song What Could Be Nicer? Written and performed by Gilbert O'Sullivan, it soon becomes apparent that it shares many of the pitfalls which a multiple of other thirty-minute British sitcoms of the period occurred in their transition to the big screen. Till Death Us Do Part, On the Buses and Bless This House all struggled mightily in being stretched to feature-length. Still, fortunately, the interplay here between Irene Handl and Wilfred Pickles remains generally companionably entertaining.
Irene Handl is undoubtedly the stand-out. Nonetheless, there are deviating levels of enjoyment in some of the other performances including some practised humoristic assistance from series regulars Barbara Mitchell as Ada's daughter, Ruth Pollitt, and Ada's son-in-law, Leslie, played by Jack Smethurst. By no connotation is this a good film, but it's got nostalgia value to those of a particular generation, and it arises with an unimposing and restrained charm. It's no wonder that Handl and Pickles were two of the most liked elderly performers on television in the seventies for a brief moment in time.