Spoof tells a wry tale of film factory

To all intents and purposes Cricklewood Greats, on BBC Four, was one of those lovely nostalgic trips down the film industry's memory lane, packed with poignant interviews and terrific old footage. Except it was all a spoof – and a brilliantly constructed and delivered one, too.

The brainchild of Peter Capaldi (probably best known as the ghastly foul-mouthed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It), he wrote, directed and presented this one-off gem celebrating the golden age of North London's Cricklewood Film Studios and the "stars" it introduced to the world.

With deadpan earnest, he was utterly convincing in his role of obsessive and scholarly fan of this "legendary" creative hotbed which once stood on a site now occupied by a giant Wickes building materials store – which was explored with reverence.

Peter put his vivid imagination to good use to create some lovely characters and crazy career yarns from the early days of silent movie experimentation and a mustachioed bowler-hatted joker known as the Little Drunk.

Then there was 1930s singer and comedy turn Florrie Fontaine, whose family were "so poor they lived under a fish and chip shop". We were treated to clips from her humorous black and white classics like Florrie Drives A Lorry, an interview with her aged sister who revealed that the partner who treated her badly died when an overdone chip went down the wrong way and "slit his throat from the inside". In the war years she cosied up with the Nazi high command, essentially killing her British career. She ended her days running a bierkeller in Benidorm.

Memorable moments came from horror B movies like Dr Worm starring Lionel Crisp, failed hero Johnny Puff, and the cheeky Thumbs Up series. But the piece de resistance came from Terry Gilliam playing himself as the director who brought the studios to an explosive end in the 1980s.

You couldn't make it up... well, actually, Peter did.