10 Films With My Dad by Aidan Goatley Kimble Books, £5.99

This book is based on Aidan Goatley’s Edinburgh Fringe show, which he is bringing to the 19th Bradford International Film Festival next month.

The show did so well in Scotland he is taking it back this summer, only to a bigger venue.

I have not seen his routine, but if the book is anything to go by I can imagine why people warmed to the live version so readily.

To begin with, it’s a great story about fathers and sons, wittily told by a man with a free-associating sense of humour that’s not based on conventional gags. Think of the late Alan Coren and add a dash of Woody Allen.

His account of furtively watching the film Last Year At Marienbad as a teenager is a good example.

“Surely this would be a winner, I mean it’s French and in black and white. It was not. It’s a series of beautifully shot sequences that have relatively no narrative connection to each other or to the characters in the scenes themselves and seems to be concerned about the ennui of existence and existential angst.

“In effect it’s like watching 472 Calvin Klein commercials in a row while melting your brain with a blowtorch and replacing it with grilled Halloumi cheese.”

His dad, a naval engineer with three degrees, talks in block capitals to denote strong opinions and a very loud voice.

He and his embarrassed boy were thrown out of Aliens, a film his father had at first admired: “Oh that’s very clever. They’ve had to recycle the future and that’s why that works so well. Well done!”

And then, as Ripley and the soldiers walked through the space laboratory for the first time, Goatley senior spotted something that stung him to the quick.

“What is that doing there? That is a Tefal deep fat fryer. What is that doing in space?”

“His later thesis on the subject entitled Why No-one Fries In Space failed to justify his outburst despite becoming essential reading for all NASA employees.”

These days everyone sits in front of the telly either watching subscription films or DVDs. But when Aidan was a lad and before that, when his dad was a lad, fathers and sons went to the pictures.

One of the first films his dad saw was the British wartime propaganda film Went The Day Well? Young Aidan loved it.

“If you haven’t seen it yet then you are missing out on an absolute classic. It stars Thora Hird among others, shooting Nazis!

“Honestly, if you thought Songs Of Praise was her high point, you haven’t seen anything till you’ve seen Thora with a Webley shooting indiscriminately at the attacking enemy.”

He doesn’t explain how he came to know the make of the gun, but it’s not hard to guess. His father, he says, knows all there is to know about absolutely everything in the universe.

He’s also a kindly, affectionate man, as the poignant finale reveals. If you never went to the films with your dad or if nobody came to watch you play for the school team, you’ll like this book, even with its occasional mis-spellings and wobbly grammar.

How can you not warm to a bloke who, to prove a point to his father, entered the Brighton Marathon and was beaten into last place by three Japanese students carrying a 20ft model of the Bullet train?

“They clearly had an aerodynamic advantage!”

This book could be a funny, touching movie. I’m giving my copy to a schoolfriend who, in the late 1960s, used to go to the pictures with his dad – together with a small canvas shopping bag of sandwiches.