The notion of dressing up (a little), getting in the car, driving downtown, parking and paying to see a bunch of television commercials is -- well, foreign to me. But then so are the commercials.

Not so terribly foreign, though. They're from our cousins across the Pond, and they're a delightful reminder of the cultural differences between their messages -- and medium -- and ours.

"British Advertising Awards," presented for a 4-day run [Monday-Thursday, March 24-27] at the Pittsburgh Film Makers' Harris Theater on Liberty Avenue, is a nice, crisp, one-hour compilation of the best 30-, 60- and 90-second sales pitches aired in the United Kingdom last year. Commercials have been less ubiquitous and influential in English video development than in our own, due to the original dominance of the government-owned BBC networks. But in recent decades, the expansion and proliferation of privatized and for-profit channels have turned British TV advertising into something more like an art form.

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'British Advertising Awards'

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

• Rating: PG-13 in nature.

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Guinness, Cadbury, Sony and Volkswagen are among the more familiar trade names being hawked over the airwaves these days. And there's a very funny mass-nudist ad for Vaseline ("Your skin is amazing -- look after it!"). But I suspect you'll find the clips for uniquely British products more charming -- PG Tea's talking monkey puppet and Welshmen's Pot Noodles' coal miners, for instance, or the "Talk-Talk" broadband services.

Most fascinating, however, are the powerfully effective PSA's -- public service announcements -- on behalf of social campaigns against drunk driving, anorexia and breast cancer. (But the "Full-Stop" organization's anti-child cruelty ad is just too totally creepy.)

Among the sorrowful and glorious mysteries: I don't quite know what to make of the commercial for "vegetable yeast spread," regurgitated by a baby on its hapless mother. Only the Brits would invent (let alone consume) such a thing.

But my hands-down favorite is the ad for a speedy-delivery service on the order of FedEx or UPS: Coins are inserted in a vending machine, which then pours forth a strong stream of nice hot coffee -- straight into the drain below. Then, and only then, the cup that was supposed to contain the liquid descends.

The company's slogan? "Late is as good as never."