:: Editorial

Time just seems to fly by, and with the recent heatwave, there is little incentive to be glued to a computer or a TV. That said, the latest DVD to hit the shops, Thirty Minutes Worth, is worth making an exception for and is detailed below.

Updates in the next month will be a unlikely as the proposed move is now on (again! I thought it was going to happen 6 months ago only to find the buyer pull out at the late stages of the process). There are mixed feelings about the move, but I am glad that there is a light at the end of the tunnel as there is only so much living out of a box that a sane person can do. Hopefully, once moved, it will be back to business as usual, and I won't have to keep on thinking - where the hell did I pack that, it I have to review that by Monday!

---

:: Thirty Minutes Worth

Harry Worth is sadly a semi-forgotten comedy performer who was huge in the 60s and 70s. Bypassed by VHS (and from what I can make out, the myriad of satellite channels), it has taken 21 years from his death for a series to finally make it out in the wider world. Worth was a master of comic confusion, and this can be seen in this latest release of the complete first ITV series. More are promised for next year - the second and third series of Thirty Minutes Worth, and My Name Is Harry Worth, with a repackaged Complete Harry Worth later on. What was the title of the series he did prior to moving to ITV? Answers should be sent here with WORTH in the header so it isn't caught in the spam filters. Please make sure oyu send your name and postal address, so I can send the prize on if you are lucky enough to win. Now the smallprint. The competition is open to UK residents only; multiple entries will be disqualified; the judges decision is final, and no correspondence will be entered into. The closing date for the competition is Monday 23 August 2010, and the winners will be notified by email. There is no cash alternative, and the prizes are supplied by ITV DVD with no responsibility taken by this website for subsequent cancellation or change.

---

:: An Audience With Ken Dodd

Doddy may not be everyone's cup-of-tea comedy wise, but there is no mistaking a master at work. I was lucky enough to catch his live show twice last year, and meet the great man in person afterwards, and this DVD is bringing my memories of the chuckle-a-thons back. I started watching the DVD just before the cold took hold, so I still haven't got all the way through, but the press release states that this has a bonus 40 minutes of material never previously seen in the original broadcast, bring it a little closer to the 5 hours his stage show generally lasts for. The celebrity audience never did add to any of the shows for me, although I was struck by how many had departed this world since, but I can see why television needed to have the right questions planted and have familiar faces ask them. Having been to his shows though, he will always get the right questions from the public, and can always find the right gags to keep him on track is something unexpected happens. For me, this DVD represents a little bit of history that should be preserved forever. In the words of another comic - there'll never be another.

---

:: Dear John - Series 1

Penned by sitcom scribe John Sullivan, Dear John is al ost gem of British television comedy and now, after years of waiting, the programme is finally to receive a much deserved DVD release courtesy of Acorn Media. The series stars the late Raplh Bates as John Lacey, the eponymouse hero who thinks he has everything in life, only to see his world fall apart when his wife ups and leaves him for a pal. Charting the aftermath of his separation, we follow the comprehensive school teacher John's new life which centres on a scruffy bedsit run by a slightly odd elderly Polish woman, and the local community centre which plays host to a group, 1-2-1, for divorced and separated people, and is peopled by an eccentric and unusual bunch of characters. The programme ran for two seasons, the first in Feb/Mar 1986 and the second in Sep/Oct 1987, with a special at Christmas 1987, before star Bates fell ill with cancer, which eventually claimed his life in 1991. Now Dear John, the complete First Series will be avaialable as a two-DVD set from the 10th May.

---

:: The Good Life

To celebrate 35 years since its original broadcast, Acorn Media is delighted to announce the digitally re-mastered release of one of the great British TV comedy classics The Good Life. Starring a cast of outstanding British acting talent including Richard Briers, Felicity Kendal, Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington this is the comedy series that put organic foods, self-sufficiency and green thinking on the map years before anyone else.

The Good Life will be released throughout 2010 for the first time ever in series order. The first release, The Good Life Complete Series One, comes as a fantastic two disc set, on 29 March 2010 courtesy of Acorn Media.

On his 40th birthday Tom Good (Briers) decides he’s had enough of the daily grind, he packs in his job and convinces his wife Barbara (Kendal) that they should become self-sufficient. Overnight they convert their suburban garden into a farm for organic living, complete with crops, pigs and chickens and homemade beer, much to the disapproval of their snooty neighbour Margo (Keith) and her henpecked husband Jerry (Eddington).

Created by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, the programme ran for four series from 1975-1978. Its popularity has rarely waned and it was voted ninth best sitcom of all time in a BBC poll. Unique in its vision, and a truly brilliant British sitcom, The Good Life is entertainment at its finest. Special features include an interview with series writer Bob Larbey, and subtitles

---

:: Vintage Beeb

“We’ve just heard that a cement mixer has collided with a prison van on the Kingston Bypass. Motorists are asked to be on the lookout for sixteen hardened criminals.”

Emanating, of course, from the newsdesk of Messrs. Barker and Corbett (1975 vintage) this two-liner forms part of the opening news feature on one of the next tranche of Vintage Beeb releases, available on 4th February 2010. The Two Ronnies LP, first released in 1976, features sketches from the pens of Gerald Wiley (Ronnie Barker), John Cleese, David Nobbs and a host of others. As well as some of Barker’s best wordfoolery and Spoonerisms, it also contains Cleese’s classic Grublian sketch (“That’s the problem with you British – no sense of cruelty”) and Wiley’s About a Bout.

As with the rest of the Vintage Beeb range, classic BBC LPs are now being reissued on CD with packaging that replicates that of the original LP and sleeve notes, while the onbody artwork for the CD is marvellously designed to resemble the grooved surface of an original 33 1/3 RPM record, with the base of the CD itself also coloured black. As the blurb says, they recapture “a little slice from the golden age of the vinyl spoken word LP.” I can't believe that no-one at Auntie had thought of this before - I bought some special blank CDRs a few years abck that were printed to resemble LPs specifically for this purpose!

Also available on the same day are It's Morecambe and Wise and a Hancock doubler of The Lift and Twelve Angry Men. Another 1976 release, Hancock features sleeve notes by Galton and Simpson and two shows which, by any yardstick, are rightly judged as classics. The Lift, from Hancock’s final BBC series, features The Lad ‘Imself in full outrage mode, trapped in a lift at the BBC because he ignored the weight restrictions and insisted that everything would be fine – but now it's gone midnight, the building is empty and Hancock won't stop talking… Twelve Angry Men, from 1959 and co-starring Sid James, contains one of the most quotable Hancock monologues, delivered as he’s trying to convince the rest of the jury to change their verdict: “Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?”.

Jumping back five years to 1971, It’s Morecambe and Wise showcases some of Eddie Braben’s finest material for arguably comedy’s greatest double-act. Actually, there’s no ‘arguably’ about it – they were, and remain, the greatest. Lifting choice selections from The Morecambe & Wise Television Show, this set includes ‘Ern's magnificent body’, ‘A visit from the police’ and Ernie foolishly believing he’s going to be employed as Bob Hope’s chief scriptwriter…

Other titles include Round The Horne, Willo The Wisp, Fawlty Towers, The Magic Roundabout and Camberwick Green, and all for the ludicrously low price of around 3 quid each as Amazon at the moment. Yes, that was THREE QUID EACH. Stone me, I have paid more than that for second-hand copies of the original vinyl. If someone is lucky enought o have a birthday looming these will make ideal presents, and it not, stach a few away int he back of the wardrobe ready for when there is a special occassion.