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Very Best of The Comedians, Series Five (The)
R2 - United Kingdom - Network Review written by and copyright: Paul Lewis (3rd August 2009). |
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The Show
 
Produced by Granada Television, The Comedians (1971-92) was enormously popular during the 1970s. One of the first television shows to popularise (via the medium of television) the culture of pub and club stand-up comedy, The Comedians suffered in the 1980s due to the rise of the alternative comedy scene, which was a conscious reaction against the brand of traditional stand-up comedy represented by this series: the politicised alternative comedians, such as Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle, took particular umbrage at the perceived sexism and racism of the pub and club comedians, along with the club comedians’ reliance on apolitical ‘gags’ (see Logan, 2009; Slott, 2005: 114). However, the culture of working men’s club culture has had something of a revival in recent years, thanks in large part to the success of Peter Kay’s club-set situation comedy Phoenix Nights (Channel 4, 2001), which looks back to The Comedians’ spin-off series, The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club (Granada, 1974-7), for its inspiration. 
Attempting to capture the spirit of club comedy, The Comedians features a large number of club comics delivering their jokes in rapid succession; among them are comics such as Charlie Williams, Mike Reid, Jim Bowen, Frank Carson, Bernard Manning. When The Comedians was first broadcast in 1971, many of these comedians were, although famous on the club scene, relatively unknown. However, by this fifth series of The Comedians, many of them had become household names. The Comedians were recorded delivering their routines in front of an audience, and the jokes come thick and fast: the series used the then-relatively new technology of videotape editing to cut between the different comics’ acts. As Louis Barfe notes in Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light Entertainment (2008), approximately eighty per cent of the material was not used in the show, and producer Johnnie Hamp’s ‘stroke of genius was to take only the very best gags and use the new technology of videotape editing to create a quick-fire comedic assault’ (245). 
The Comedians offers a glimpse back into the history of the culture of club comedy (or, more specifically, its relationship with television), and some of the jokes are very funny – even some of the types of jokes that offended the alternative comedians of the 1980s. For example, in a classic joke about ‘the wife’, Ken Goodwin states that ‘I saw my mate on the street the other day, you know. I said, “Where are you going?” He said, “I’m taking my wife to the doctor: I don’t like the look of her”. I said, “Well, hang on. I’ll get mine: I can’t stand the sight of her”’. Or, as Frank Carson notes, ‘I haven’t spoken to my wife for eleven months. Didn’t like to interrupt her. She talks through her nose, you know: her mouth’s worn out’. 
This compilation of clips from the fifth series of The Comedians runs for 88:33 mins (PAL) NB. Please see our reviews of series three and series four of The Comedians.
Video
Shot on VT in a studio environment, The Comedians gets a perfectly adequate presentation on this DVD release, and is presented in its original broadcast screen ratio of 4:3. 
Audio
Audio is perfectly serviceable, and is presented via a two-channel mono track. There are no subtitles.
Extras
There is no contextual material.
Overall
This style of club comedy probably may not be to everyone’s taste, although as noted above the culture of club comedy has undergone something of a revival in the 2000s, thanks to shows such as Phoenix Nights and Live at the Apollo (BBC, 2004- ). Recent years have also seen a postmodern recuperation of non-PC humour, as evidenced in the popularity of drama series such as Life on Mars (BBC, 2006-7). Stand-up comedians such as Omid Djallili have also promoted a self-consciously ironic deconstruction of jokes about issues such as race and cultural difference. Finally, some of the alternative comedians (such as Lenny Henry and Richard Herring) have retrenched into the club circuit. In this context, the brand of club stand-up comedy that is represented through The Comedians seems less dated (and more relevant) now than it did in the 1980s and 1990s. As such, Network’s releases of The Comedians seem very timely. For fans of stand-up, this DVD is a very worthwhile purchase. References: Barfe, Louis, 2008: Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light Entertainment. London: Atlantic Books Logan, Brian, 2009: ‘The new offenders of stand-up comedy’. The Guardian (27 July, 2009): en Slott, Andrew, 2005: Comedy. London: Routledge For more information, please visit the homepage of Network DVD.
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