‘The Comic strip’ tries it’s hand at spaghetti westerns with semi mixed results. It’s basically 2 groups of travellers, one led by Rik Mayall in full Lee Van Cleef garb, and another led by French and Saunders playing a couple of aussies who pick up a drugged up hitchhiker.

I think one of the biggest things that holds this one back from really being up there is its kind of half hearted on mimicking the directional style of those kinds of movies. Those grand, ultra wide shots that really take In the scenery are few and far between.

The tone isn’t quite right either. It does dabble with that hyper moody atmosphere, but by the end its given way to just a bit of a slapstick runaround…which is something we’ve seen in other specials handled quite a bit better.

That being said this one does have a pretty solid laugh hit rate, Mayall picked up writing duties on this one, and while the pacings a little uneven, and the characters a little poorly defined (I’m STILL not 100% sure what the point of it was, other than ‘here’s some random characters being goofy in spain) it’s still quite good fun and one of the more enjoyable ‘comic strip’ specials.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/a-fistful-of-travellers-cheques/