The train drivers' union said today it would picket the premiere of a new British comedy film based around suicides on the London tube network, saying the subject should not be trivialised.

Aslef will hand out leaflets to members of the public before the charity premiere of Three and Out, which takes place in Leicester Square on Monday.

The film stars Mackenzie Crook - best known for appearing in The Office - as a tube driver who has seen two people fall under his train in the space of a few days.

He then learns of a London Underground regulation, invented for the film, that says any driver suffering three train suicides within a month is pensioned off with a 10-year salary payment.

Crook's character, who wants to write a novel, sets off to try to find someone suicidal and willing to leap under his train.

Keith Norman, the Aslef general secretary, said he could not see how the subject was suitable for a comedy.

"I can't find anything amusing about people so distressed that they are driven to suicide," he said. "These incidents can mean life-changing traumas for drivers who have been involved.

"I don't want Aslef to look like some sort of killjoy organisation, because we're not - but there are issues we shouldn't ignore, and this is one of them."

Last year, 249 people died on underground tracks, with 194 of these classed as suicides or suspected suicides, Norman said.

"Behind each of these is undeniably a terrible and tragic story of loneliness and despair," he said. "The union's specific concern is a secondary victim - and that is the driver."

The company distributing the film, WBE, said today Aslef's attitude was "disappointing", adding that it felt viewers would believe the issues had been "handled sensitively".

London Underground had cooperated closely with filming, it said in a statement, adding that the script had also been sent to the Samaritans, with that organisation featuring in a scene.

The film has not as yet been widely reviewed, but one early verdict, from the website of the Film 4 channel, was damning on two counts.
The review said Three and Out was "thoroughly tasteless", and expressed the hope that it would not spark any copycat incidents.

It added: "That said, any such behaviour will be more motivated by terminal boredom than any genuine craving to emulate the plot of this dispiriting and amateurish comedy."