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Completely overlooked – where is the justice?,
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Like most people I think I was out when this was on first time round (I assume it was put in the graveyard slot) so brought this on faith based on his previous work. I was not disappointed! There are moments of pure genius in this series and Armando Iannucci’s delivery is fantastically dry. You get a real sense of a great comedic mind at work finding humour in everyday life and then transferring that into some of the most ridiculous situations imaginable and blowing it out of all proportions. If like me you missed this the first time round then make sure your mistakes are not repeated! However don’t expect the controversy or shock value of his works with Chris Morris, the humour here is far more subtle but no less amusing.
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|The good bits are very good indeed,
Armando Iannucci is well known for his role in some of the best recent British comedy (Alan Partridge, The Thick Of It etc) but a lot of people seem to have missed this series. That’s a shame as when he does his own stuff it’s often brilliant, with a bit of a surreal edge. I watched most of the series when it was on telly and some bits stuck in my head for years so I was really pleased when it came out on DVD.
Each of the episodes is sposed to be on a particular theme, but you don’t really need to know that! What is important is that some of the stuff in this series is genius. A common themes is people basically being rubbish and/or naff. The first episode has two brilliant bits – the witty bloke at a dinner party being literally fed his funny lines, and the ‘tw*ts’ bit (especially the bloke singing his song about Princess Anne’s birthday). Other highlights are Armando The Great Adult, and when he does a comedy slot at the end of a conference using powerpoint slides to get across his jokes.
Sometimes – a bit like his Observer column! – the joke doesn’t quite work or it goes on too long. So it’s definitely a hit & miss DVD. But the best stuff is so good it’s worth ploughing through to get to. And the extras are pretty good too – the commentaries are pretty funny. One word of warning – if you don’t want to know the result of the Arsenal-Barcelona Champions League final don’t listen to the commentaries…
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|Slow Burning Genius,
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For any Armando Ianucci fans, this is a must have DVD.
You don’t always get to see much of our man Armando, he writes on some of the best loved and well known of comedies and so it is great to see the man himself.
The series itself is a narrative on modern day life, it focuses on social issues by using comedy sketches – many of them fantastically surreal.
Some sketches feel a bit drawn out, it varies from amusing to laugh out loud hilarious – but all good material. This show contains some of my favourite sketches/comedy moments of all time. I love it when he talks about his disappointing trip to Disney World on dress down Friday, giving a seminar on the construction of his jokes, and the sketch about being fed lines to say at parties was genius.
I have used the word genius a few times in this review, in fact, I did it just then. But in this case it is well warranted. His observations are told from an intellectual perspective, yet they don’t feel patronising. In fact, Armando uses himself as an almost social retard in many of the programmes to show how he struggles with the modern world.
Eight fantastic episodes and some nice extras.
Want to know the answer to the question:
What’s both big and small at the same time?
Then watch this and find out!!!
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