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Comic Strip Presents - Complete Collection


RRP: £49.99
Our Price: £15.07 (subject to change)

Worth buying but something of a mixed bag.
Review date: 2008-09-01 Rating: 6 out of 10

I guess we all remember our favourites from the anarchic and prodigious Comic Strip team. For my money, both the Five Go Mad episodes are still as side-splittingly hilarious as they were back in the 80's. The brilliantly observed War, Beat Generation, Summer School and The Strike remain both funny, extremely clever and surprisingly subtle in places. The absolutely barking mad Mr Jolly plays rather like an extended and ambitious episode of Bottom. Some of the send-ups, like The Bull******** (obviously spoofing The Professionals, but Robbie Coltrane is spookily close to Gene Hunt!), Slags, The Yob and Space Virgins are reasonably funny, but some of the obscure gags rely on the viewer being familiar with the material being spoofed. Les Dogs, Oxford and Demonella are faintly reminiscent of Tales of the Unexpected and are pretty good. Both the Bad News episodes are superb and have, justifiably, been described as a British Spinal Tap. Some of the political episodes, notably GLC and Red Nose of Courage (Adrian Edmonson admittedly does make an excellent John Major!) come over as a bit preachy, but are still worth a watch and the utterly unclassifiable Fistful of Travellers' Cheques is an absolute gem!

So far so good.

But then we have the real dogs. You will almost lose the will to live after sitting through Susie, Didn't You Kill My Brother, Dirty Movie, Private Enterprise, Consuela, the utterly pointless Wild Turkey and the wretched Eddie Monsoon - a Life. Most of the remainder fall somewhere in between with the feature length stories being fairly slow-paced, but with the odd laugh along the way. Strangely, Queen of the Wild Frontier seems almost to be a straightforward drama with very little comic about it.

I guess the bottom line is that this box set does comprise a whopping 26 hours of entertainment - including a genuinely interesting documentary. OK, so there are a half dozen or so stories you will probably never want to watch again, but the classic episodes more than justify the purchase price. There's something for everyone in here and you shouldn't be disappointed, at this now heavily discounted price.


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Reviews


Only bought it for "Mr Jolly"
Review date: 2008-08-29 Rating: 10 out of 10

if it were not for "Mr Jolly" I would give this collection a 1*
but the inclusion of "Mr Jolly" lifts the collection easily into the 5* rating!

The good news are the Bad News.
Review date: 2008-07-16 Rating: 6 out of 10

This is very good if you are interested in the history of some of the current greats in British TV Comedy. People like Rick Mayal, Adrian Edmondson, Nigel Planer (Known from Bad News featured here, The Young Ones, Filthy, Rich & Catflap, The New Statesman and Bottom). Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders (French & Saunders, The Vicar of Dibley and Absolutely Fabulous) as well as guests like Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane and Alexei Sayle.

The episodes, or little films themselves, however are mostly hit and miss. A lot of this doesn't work at all, and I'm fairly sertain it never did either. Bad News, the story (told twice) of an incredibly useless heavy metal band is the best known in this set, and the one that still works. Very much a british Spinal Tap, the bands utter ignorance of their own shortcommings is still a treat to behold to this day, and almost worth the set in its own right. Specialy, if you have nothing but a 20 year old VHS tape from before.

So get this, but be warned, laughs could be quite far between, and the interest curve may dip quite often.

The Thirty Nine Steps to Film Heaven
Review date: 2008-05-23 Rating: 10 out of 10

Difficult to imagine in these days when we get a new TV channel every couple of days that in 1982 we only had three and that the first night of Channel Four would be an important cultural event. The one programme that I had been looking forward to was `The Comic Strip presents...Five Go Mad in Dorset' a perfect parody of the Enid Blyton's `Famous Five' books. It was an absolute scream and has coloured my television viewing ever since, from `The Young Ones', `The New Statesman', `French and Saunders', `Happy Families' and `Bottom' on to this weeks `Teenage Kicks'.

The remainder of the first series carried on the success with the brilliant ensemble piece `War', the fantastically clever `The Beat Generation', the classic heavy metal parody `Bad News Tour' and the brilliantly observed `Summer School'. The first three films were written by the Peter Richardson and Pete Richens partner ship while `Bad News Tour' was the brain child of Adrian Edmondson and `Summer School' was written by Dawn French.

The second series raised the bar even further with it's precursor of a second `Famous Five' film, `Five Go Mad On Mescalin' which built on the first film. Second up `Dirty Movie' is a brilliant visual comedy from the pen of Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall which works well with Rod Melvin's organ accompaniment. `Susie' is a brilliant love story parody from the Richardson Richens axis with Dawn French brilliant in the lead. `A Fistful of Travellers' Cheques' has Rik Mayall collaboration with the core writing team to create a perfect pastiche of the Dollars trilogy. `Gino' is a brilliant film with Keith Allen in the lead and is without doubt my favourite of all the Comic Strip films.
Edmondson's `Eddie Monsoon' and Jennifer Saunders `Slags' close the series and show how all the writing had improved.

`The Bullsh*tters' is now considered a Comic Strip film although as a collaboration between Allen and Richardson it was originally released without the familiar title so as to give Allen equal status as the creator of this perfect parody of Seventies TV detectives `The Professionals'. Other stand alone episodes at this time where Edmondson's brilliant `Private Enterprise' and `Consuela' a perfect French and Saunders parody of Daphne Du Maurier's `Rebecca' which was the template for the shorter film parodies that would later be the centre pieces of their own TV show.

The next film was the cinema release of feature `The Sugergrass' which was Peter Richardson's directing debut and does perhaps drag in areas and would possibly have been better served to have been edited to a hour as part of the next series which kicked off with the brilliant `The Strike' which was the first of many films to parody Hollywood and it's most famous sons through films within films of very English political films, in this case a sexing up of the miners strike. The next film was `More Bad News' which continued in a similar vein to its predecessor. Edmondson's and Mayall then gave us `Mr Jolly Lives Next Door' which is a film prototype of the duo's later sit com `Bottom'. The Next film was Allen's `The Yob' which mocks Allen's own football yob persona and parodies `The Fly' in a brilliant film which was the first film not to use the bulk of the original ensemble. This is continued with Alexi Sayle's film `Didn't you Kill my Brother?' and Nigel Planer's `Funseekers'.

The fourth series of films saw a move to the BBC and a return to the half hour format but continuity was guaranteed with Trouble from `Traveller's Cheques' and Max from `Gino' as well as the full ensemble appearing in two parter `South Atlantic Raiders'. `GLC' was a sequel to `The Strike' with Robbie Coltrane playing Charles Bronson as Ken Livingstone in the story of the abolition of the Greater London Council. `Oxford' features special guests Lenny Henry and Leslie Philips while `Spaghetti Hoops' and `Les Dogs' featured less of the regulars, the latter been a particularly weird piece.

Three specials came from the Comic Strip staple the first of one being the brilliant `Red Nose of Courage' which parodied British politics with Adrian Edmondson being a worryingly good John Major. `The Crying Game' was another Allen Richardson collaboration twisting the Paul Gascoigne story with a politically correct twist. `Wild Turkey' was a Christmas special featuring a gun toting turkey questioning our Christmas traditions.

The fourth series started strongly with Allen and Richardson's `Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown' expanding the `Bullsh*tters' to parody all TV detectives with a few song and dance numbers. `Space Virgins from Planet Sex' was possibly the last great film with a B-movie pastiche blending with a wonderful James Bond parody in a way only the Comic Strip could pull off. `Queen of the Wild Frontier' saw Richens and Richardson move towards straight films but had none of the charm of the older films. `Gregory' was an accurate parody of `The Silence of the Lambs' whilst `Demonella' and `Jealousy' outlined that the Comic Strip had indeed had its course.

The original cast re-assembled on Channel Four five years later with the brilliant `Four Man in a Car' the success of which was almost repeated in 2000 with `Four Men in a Plane'. This DVD was released before the last Comic Strip film `Sex Actually' was produced but a further release will no doubt see this been added.

Although the bonus documentaries offer very little insight the original Julian Temple film of the initial stage revue at least fill in the gaps of a brilliant box set of a truly bench mark TV show.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Adrian Edmondson
Rik Mayall
Dawn French
Jennifer Saunders
Nigel Planer

Creators:
Adrian Edmondson (Primary Contributor)
Dawn French (Primary Contributor)

Recording label: 4dvd
Manufacturer: 4dvd
EAN: 6867441014195
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 9
Format: Box set, PAL,
Release date: 2007-08-06
Audience rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
Region code: 2
Language: English (Original Language)

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