I bet I haven't seen Bernard And The Genie for ages and ages. I first saw this 1991 Lenny Henry BBC TV movie back in 1992. At that point I'd been seeing Lenny on PBS for a few years. PBS had good audiences for BBC comedies like The Young Ones, A Bit Of Fry & Laurie, and French And Saunders. Lenny was in the same zany vein and some episodes were pretty darn funny. I had a VHS of BATG but it's long gone. I saw a DVD on sale at MDV video and bought it. The movie is written by Richard Curtis and directed by Paul Weiland. In 1991 Richard had already written all 4 series of Blackadder and just started on writing Mr Bean. Four Weddings And A Funeral was his next feature film.
Alan Cummings is Bernard, an art buyer for a firm run by Rowan Atkinson. Rowan is a super scumbag and he fires Bernard for being a nicer person. Poor Bernard goes home to find out his girlfriend is dumping him for his friend. That's all the same day that a genie comes into his life. Lenny Henry plays Josephus the Genie and he's a handful. He's been trapped in the lamp for 2000 years and he's busting to have some fun. He might have to grant Bernard all the wishes he wants but he's going to do it in style. People familiar with the 80s Lenny Henry show would know exactly how's he's acting. Big noise, loud costumes, plenty of emotion, and a sense of wonder set to eleven. Bernard takes Josephus on a tour of London and introduces him to the Big Mac and ice cream. That's one ecstatic genie. Bernard has some fun with his wishes. Those get him into some trouble but having a genie around sure can help. I liked all the characters, I thought there were plenty of jokes and I even laughed out loud a few times. I was glad to have picked it up and I hope to see it again someday. You can see a copy on YouTube that isn't too bad. Might do ya. In fact, the DVD is not much better. The DVD says it came out in 2004 and it's not been replaced by a better copy, even in the UK. I only paid 5 bucks for the copy I got, it's 18 bucks on Amazon right now. That's a steeper price that I would like to pay.
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