[3] A few days before Christmas, Glasgow radio disc jockey Allan "Dicky" Bird is stunned when Maddy, his kleptomaniac girlfriend of four years, suddenly announces that she is moving out.

By sheer chance, Bird finds himself involved in a turf war between rival Italian ice cream vendors: the young interloper Trevor and the older, more established "Mr. McCool".

To contact the combatants, he starts broadcasting coded messages on his early morning show, causing Hilary, his boss, to ask his secretary if Mr. Bird's contract includes a "sanity clause".

In the end, Bird proposes that the rival entrepreneurs, who turn out to be uncle and nephew, join forces to market a new treat: ice cream fritters.

Since Bird alone knows the secret ingredient of the ancient Chinese recipe, he cuts himself in for 30% of the gross as well as repairs to his abused car.

"Local Hero created the impression that my films make money, because it got a lot of coverage and a fair amount of people went to see it.

"[5] The film was announced in 1983 by Verity Lambert as part of a slate of movies by EMI, the others including Dreamchild, Morons from Outer Space and Slayground.

[12][13] In his review in The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, "Comfort and Joy is a charming film on its own, but something of a disappointment when compared to Gregory's Girl and Local Hero, in which the inventions were more consistently comic and crazy.

"[15] The reviewer went on to observe that, "Paterson is always worth seeing, while Grogan and David are equally watchable, but there aren't the belly laughs That Sinking Feeling provides so readily, or the casual charm of Gregory's Girl."

at Variety was also lukewarm, concluding that after "... evincing much laughter over an unexpectedly funny couple living together, Forsyth abruptly switches into a more conventional plot" and that "David and Paterson are terrific together and almost every line between them is a joy.

From the point she departs with no explanation the pic flashes a sparky moment or two, but it doesn't reach the high spots again.

"[10] On the other hand, Roger Ebert called Comfort and Joy "... one of the happiest and most engaging movies you are likely to see this year, and it comes from a Glasgow director who has made a specialty out of characters who are as real as you and me, and nicer than me.