Comic Strip Presents (9 DVD) [£16.99@HMV.co.uk]

Ruu_Old

I think I'll be picking this up. Link here.

Here's a welcome reissue for the complete output of Channel 4's Comic Strip team, at a slightly less wallet stretching price. Featuring the cream of the early 80s alternative comedy scene, the Comic Strip gave early TV exposure to such currently mainstream names as Dawn French, Ade Edminson, Rick Mayall, Robbie Coltrane and Jennifer Saunders. Together with director, writer and actor Peter Richardson, they brought an anarchic new style of comedy to the emergent forth channel, starting on the stations opening night with the Enid Blyton satire 'Five Go Mad In Dorset'. This box set contains everything they did so the quality sometimes wavers and a few of the films have dated quite badly. The satirical stab at Yuppiedom, The Yob, could only have come from the 1980s. But when the team were firing on all cylinders the results were some classic comedy moments, such as the heavy metal parody, Bad News, which predated Spinal Tap, and the dry run for Bottom which was Mr Jolly Lives Next Door, which features a brutal cameo from Peter Cook, and the spaghetti western on a budget hilarity of A Fistful of Travellers Checks. A must have for serious TV comedy fans.

skibum

Brillant box set, got it last year.