"A post-modern classic written way before there was any modernism to be post about".

That's how Steve Coogan describes The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy in this new film based on the convoluted 18th-Century novel.

Or rather that's how the character of Steve Coogan describes it - for, in the self-referential twists and turns of this film, the Hove-based comedian is also required to play himself.

Full of in-jokes and with a faux-autobiographical narration, Lawrence Sterne's novel is about the impossibility of its own writing. So director Michael Winterbottom has made a film about the impossibility of filming it.

Expect some superb improvisation between Coogan and screen-rival Rob Brydon as well as cameos from Dylan Moran, Mark Williams, Stephen Fry and David Walliams.