Choice: Film

The Palm Beach Story, NFT, London SE1 (0171-928 3232) 7.30pm

Read my lips: anyone remotely interested in comedy should cancel all other engagements and rush to Preston Sturges's sensational screwball comedy. Claudette Colbert (above) decides to divorce dishy Joel McCrea because she's holding him back from achieving his true potential as an inventor. On the train to Palm Beach she survives a chaotic night with the completely barking Ale and Quail Hunting Club, runs up daywear from Pullman car bed-linen and teams up with shy multi-millionaire JD Hackensacker (Rudy Vallee) and his sister, played by mile-a-minute- mouth Mary Astor. McCrea has to pass himself off as Captain McGloo (don't ask) and the dialogue has pleasing lunacy few could match. Vallee on his money: "Sooner or later, you have so much of it you simply can't ignore it." Colbert: "Like a horse in a bedroom." Throw in Sturges's gloriously fanciful plotting, ripely comic acting from his stars and regular ensemble players and you have 96 minutes of heaven.