| "Anarchic Humour At It's Best!" |
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The Comic Strip Presents - The Complete Collection
BOXSET/APPROX. 1570 MINS/2007/UK MA15+
BOXSET/APPROX. 1570 MINS/2007/UK MA15+
10
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Horror fans are generally divided by what decade they like their movies from.
Almost every forum on the internet has some poll or other about what decade is 'The Best' for horror, but whenever discussions about comedy fire
up, usually people are divided by what country they like their comedy from, basically due to the culture of various countries having a great influence
on what their comedy is like.
Some people prefer the American milk-it-til-it-ain't-funny-anymore style, where series last long after they should have died for an extra buck (some
great examples of this are Married With Children, The Cosby Show and Seinfeld), some like the VERY rural and multicultural comic styling’s from
Australia (like Kinswood Country, The Comedy Company and The Late Show), but the very best people with the best taste in the world (like me)
prefer English comedy (such as The Kenny Everet Video Show, French and Saunders and Black Books) which rarely goes beyond its use by date
(Absolutely Fabulous being the exception).
The eighties was really a great time for English comedy: the main reason for this MAY have been Margaret Thatcher's government, but also there
were a lot of young comedians who had grown up watching stuff like Morcombe and Wise, Monty Python, Dick Emery and their contemporaries
and had decided that laughter was where their futures lay. Many comedians who went on to star in such successful TV series' as The Young Ones,
French and Saunders, The Lenny Henry Show, Blackadder, The Vicar of Dibley and Filthy Rich and Catflap got their TV starts in this wonderful,
funny and innovative show: The Comic Strip Presents.
The Comic Strip Presents: Enjoy was an evolution of The Comic Strip nightclubs comedians getting together (those comedians being Peter
Richardson, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Alexei Sayle and Ade Edmondson) and coming up with an idea for a TV show.
Similar to the English (and American) 'variety drama' TV shows of the late 50s and early sixties where an ensemble cast of actors would, each
week, star in a different one hour story, The Comic Strip Presents is a series of unrelated one hour comedy tales, the comedy either being
blatantly slapstick or blackly sublime, and generally of a high quality. Occasionally some of the characters would return, but in unrelated tales,
rather than episodic continuations of a previous episode (though that did happen once).
This series guest stars some of the greats of this period of comedy: Lenny Henry, Ruby Wax, Robbie Coltrane, and even more serious actors like
Miranda Richardson and Anthony Head (who, granted, may not be as 'serious' an actor when considering his recent turns as the Prime Minister in
Little Britain).
Without these comedians, I doubt very much whether we would ever have been blessed with more recent UK hilarity of Father Ted, The Office,
Little Britain or Black Books (and their ilk).
As one would expect from Australia's BEST independent release company, Madman have come up with what could only be described as a dead-set
super hot release for this series. One box set, 39 episodes totally over 26 hours of side splitting, pants crapping humour that will make you
wonder WHY you ever bothered leaving the eighties (although, I must admit, the series did last from 1982 until the last episode in 2000) and
features stuff like the Comic Strips take on a heavy metal bands touring in 'Bad News Tour' and 'More Bad New', their pisstake of Enid Blyton's
characters in my favourite episodes ' Five Go Mad on Mescallin' and 'Five Go Mad in Dorset', their 'Professionals' parody 'The Bullshitters' or their
tribute to Sergio Leone (well kind of) in the crack-up 'A Fistful of Traveller's Cheques' and Roger Corman in 'Space Virgins from Planet Sex'... I could
go on...
Madman should really be given credit for this set as it could have been very easy to release each disc individually for a $30 price point, but instead
most retailers will offer it for somewhere between the $70 and $80 mark, which is almost a gift when you consider it is a 9 disc set!!!
The extras offered are cool as well. The Comic Strip Presents: A Retrospective has current interviews with some of the cast, filmmakers and writers,
and reveals them to be as funny now (and naturally) as they were then, and offers some great insights into the creation of such an unusual TV
series. There is also the Julian Temple film 'The Comic Strip' which is a documentary / film / live performance of the team at home performing live
stand up, with a vague linking story of Jenny (Jennifer Saunders) looking for her lost sister Dawn (Dawn French) and the screwed up individual she
meets along the way, like a vampire police office and paramilitary members of the Salvation Army (a tribute to the Goodies, I suspect). In addition
there is the 2 part documentary 'First on Four: The Comic Strip' which is similar to the retrospective, albeit older, but offers even MORE of an insight
to the workings and genesis of the team.
All in all another winner from Madman Entertainment, and because of the subject matter, which is dear to my heart AND my funny bone, I can offer
a score of no less than 10/10
Almost every forum on the internet has some poll or other about what decade is 'The Best' for horror, but whenever discussions about comedy fire
up, usually people are divided by what country they like their comedy from, basically due to the culture of various countries having a great influence
on what their comedy is like.
Some people prefer the American milk-it-til-it-ain't-funny-anymore style, where series last long after they should have died for an extra buck (some
great examples of this are Married With Children, The Cosby Show and Seinfeld), some like the VERY rural and multicultural comic styling’s from
Australia (like Kinswood Country, The Comedy Company and The Late Show), but the very best people with the best taste in the world (like me)
prefer English comedy (such as The Kenny Everet Video Show, French and Saunders and Black Books) which rarely goes beyond its use by date
(Absolutely Fabulous being the exception).
The eighties was really a great time for English comedy: the main reason for this MAY have been Margaret Thatcher's government, but also there
were a lot of young comedians who had grown up watching stuff like Morcombe and Wise, Monty Python, Dick Emery and their contemporaries
and had decided that laughter was where their futures lay. Many comedians who went on to star in such successful TV series' as The Young Ones,
French and Saunders, The Lenny Henry Show, Blackadder, The Vicar of Dibley and Filthy Rich and Catflap got their TV starts in this wonderful,
funny and innovative show: The Comic Strip Presents.
The Comic Strip Presents: Enjoy was an evolution of The Comic Strip nightclubs comedians getting together (those comedians being Peter
Richardson, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Alexei Sayle and Ade Edmondson) and coming up with an idea for a TV show.
Similar to the English (and American) 'variety drama' TV shows of the late 50s and early sixties where an ensemble cast of actors would, each
week, star in a different one hour story, The Comic Strip Presents is a series of unrelated one hour comedy tales, the comedy either being
blatantly slapstick or blackly sublime, and generally of a high quality. Occasionally some of the characters would return, but in unrelated tales,
rather than episodic continuations of a previous episode (though that did happen once).
This series guest stars some of the greats of this period of comedy: Lenny Henry, Ruby Wax, Robbie Coltrane, and even more serious actors like
Miranda Richardson and Anthony Head (who, granted, may not be as 'serious' an actor when considering his recent turns as the Prime Minister in
Little Britain).
Without these comedians, I doubt very much whether we would ever have been blessed with more recent UK hilarity of Father Ted, The Office,
Little Britain or Black Books (and their ilk).
As one would expect from Australia's BEST independent release company, Madman have come up with what could only be described as a dead-set
super hot release for this series. One box set, 39 episodes totally over 26 hours of side splitting, pants crapping humour that will make you
wonder WHY you ever bothered leaving the eighties (although, I must admit, the series did last from 1982 until the last episode in 2000) and
features stuff like the Comic Strips take on a heavy metal bands touring in 'Bad News Tour' and 'More Bad New', their pisstake of Enid Blyton's
characters in my favourite episodes ' Five Go Mad on Mescallin' and 'Five Go Mad in Dorset', their 'Professionals' parody 'The Bullshitters' or their
tribute to Sergio Leone (well kind of) in the crack-up 'A Fistful of Traveller's Cheques' and Roger Corman in 'Space Virgins from Planet Sex'... I could
go on...
Madman should really be given credit for this set as it could have been very easy to release each disc individually for a $30 price point, but instead
most retailers will offer it for somewhere between the $70 and $80 mark, which is almost a gift when you consider it is a 9 disc set!!!
The extras offered are cool as well. The Comic Strip Presents: A Retrospective has current interviews with some of the cast, filmmakers and writers,
and reveals them to be as funny now (and naturally) as they were then, and offers some great insights into the creation of such an unusual TV
series. There is also the Julian Temple film 'The Comic Strip' which is a documentary / film / live performance of the team at home performing live
stand up, with a vague linking story of Jenny (Jennifer Saunders) looking for her lost sister Dawn (Dawn French) and the screwed up individual she
meets along the way, like a vampire police office and paramilitary members of the Salvation Army (a tribute to the Goodies, I suspect). In addition
there is the 2 part documentary 'First on Four: The Comic Strip' which is similar to the retrospective, albeit older, but offers even MORE of an insight
to the workings and genesis of the team.
All in all another winner from Madman Entertainment, and because of the subject matter, which is dear to my heart AND my funny bone, I can offer
a score of no less than 10/10
| BUY DVD @ MADMAN.COM.AU |
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