title: A Feast at Midnight
text: # A Feast at Midnight
  
  A Feast at Midnight is a 1994 British comedy family film directed by Justin Hardy and starring Christopher Lee, Freddie Findlay, Robert Hardy, Samuel West, Edward Fox and Julie Dreyfus. The film is notable for being the feature film debut of future Conservative politician Michael Gove, as the chaplain.
  
  ## Plot
  
  Dryden Park, a prep school, welcomes a new boy, Magnus (Freddie Findlay) whose father is convalescing in Paris. Magnus is immediately targeted by bullies and gets no support from his housemaster, Professor "Raptor" (Christopher Lee). Magnus seeks solace in letters from his father (Edward Fox), with whom he shares a love of good food, but the school follows a strict diet, so Magnus organizes his new friends into a secret society who enjoy midnight feasting. Magnus and other boys also being bullied go to the school kitchen after lights out, where Magnus cooks and serves a midnight feast made up of delicious snacks. As the Midnight Feast Society grows under the nose of the housemaster, the bullies continue to dislike Magnus and his friends and set out to cause trouble for all those who are part of the Midnight Feast.
  
  ## Cast
  
  * Christopher Lee - V. E. 'Raptor' Longfellow
  * Robert Hardy - Headmaster
  * Edward Fox - Father
  * Freddie Findlay - Magnus
  * Stuart Hawley - Bathurst
  * Aled Roberts - Goff
  * Andrew Lusher - Tava
  * Samuel West - Chef
  * Carol MacReady - Miss Plunder
  * Lisa Faulkner - Miss Charlotte
  * Julie Dreyfus - Mother
  * Michael Gove - Chaplain
  * Brian Cant - Mr. Hill
  * Sebastian Armesto - Oberoi
  * Mathew Blakiston - Merriman
  
  ## Release
  
  The film was shown at the London Film Festival in November 1994.
  
  ## Reception
  
  Empire said of the film: "Nothing about it suggests that it should have been made for the big screen, so modest is its scope."
  
  