PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Greg Davies Live: The Back Of My Mum's Head 2013

Greg Davies Live: The Back Of My Mum's Head is Greg's 2012-2013 live tour. It was recorded in Salford with Ed Gamble as the opening act. Then Greg comes out and does his 84 minute set. That seems to be a common arrangement, a support comedian and the main headliner. After seeing some clips of Greg on YouTube and Facebook,I thought I would pick up one of his DVDs. The first show he did, Firing Cheeseballs At A Dog came out in 2011 and his third show Magnificent Beast hasn't hit DVD yet. It's on Netflix so who knows, it might never get to DVD. This DVD was the cheaper of the two so I ordered that first.

The title and Greg's mom feature heavily in the show. That is the back of her head. Greg spends his time on stage commenting on how crazy people are, mostly using his family as examples, and some of it's pretty darn funny. I certainly laughed out loud many times. I'd been watching Greg in a lot of panel shows and episodes of The Inbetweeners and Taskmaster. I'm curious to see Man-Down and Cuckoo.

The DVD has a behind the scenes featurette with comments from Greg's Mum, an interview with Greg on a canal boat, and a commentary with Greg and Ed Gamble. All of it was entertaining in one way or another. Glad to have picked it up.

That's The Way A-HA A-HA Joe Lycett Live 2016

That's The Way A-HA A-HA Joe Lycett Live is Joe's 2016 tour DVD. Joe does a funny 75 minute set and then he gets some questions from Sarah Millican. It all made me laugh and that's sort of thing that is good for you.

The League Of Gentlemen Live Again 2018

The League Of Gentlemen Live Again is the 2018 live show by Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Jeremy Dyson. The show is about a hundred minutes and the stage is pretty bare, a few chairs mostly. The use the projected backdrop to change scenes and locations.

The first three play all the characters and Jeremy just writes. The cover says there are more than 40 characters from Royston Vasey. They don't all get much time for their appearances, some just get brief cameos. The sketches are varied, usually they have a laugh or two, some are too short to be anything more than a link between longer bits.

I waited a bit before ordering the UK DVD and the price dropped to almost a third of the original price. The weak pound helped too. If I didn't already have so much stuff to watch for the first time I'd stick the original series on again and give them another go. Not for everyone but what is.

I'm About To Lose Control And I Think Joe Lycett Live

I'm About To Lose Control And I Think Joe Lycett Live is the 2018 stand up show that British comedian Joe Lycett has out on DVD. Glad to see he's still trying to put shows on DVD. Some comedians are going to Netflix and there are no DVDs there. This is his second DVD, I have the first coming soon. This one just dropped the price sooner. It's from the UK so all the Region 2 caveats apply.

I'd been seeing Joe on the various panel shows and clips on YouTube. He makes me laugh and I thought I would try a DVD.

Joe spends some time yakking with the audience, then he takes a break and has them tweet filthy twisted up versions of famous people's names. When he returns from the 20 minute break he reads some of their tweets. I suspect he had a leading act on for a while, then he came on for a bit before taking a break, then he was back for about another hour of material.

When Joe comes back he goes into longer set pieces. He talks about art, living with his parents and moving out to a house in Birmingham, painting Paul Chuckle, trolling the sell and swap, LGBTQ PLUS, and the trouble he had visiting his friend at the Royal Bank Of Scotland. There are good jokes, some that made me laugh out loud, and some that made me smile or giggle. Glad to see this and I'm looking forward to Joe's other DVD.

Alice In Wonderland 1949

The 1949 film of Alice In Wonderland combines live action and puppets. Two versions, one English and one French, were filmed at the same time.The film was mostly produced by French film makers. The studio scenes were filmed in France and the Oxford scenes filmed on location. The director is Dallas Bower, the screenplay for the French version is by Maurice Auberge and Maurice Griffe, the screenplay for the English is by Henry Meyers, Albert E Lewin and Edward Eliscu. The Wikipedia says the film wasn't released in the UK until 1985 due to the unflattering portrayal of Queen Victoria. It wasn't released in the US until 1951 and Disney tried to stop the release because they were releasing their own Alice In Wonderland that same year. Disney didn't get their 18 month delay and the film was released but didn't do so well.

Carol Marsh plays Alice, it was her second movie, her first was Brighton Rock.

Sadly, that's an image screencap from the DVD I have. It's a 3 disc set called The Classic Age Of Fantasy that was $5.95 at Hamilton Books. There are a dozen films totaling 953 minutes. I had some of the films in other cheap multi film packs but not all of them. The Borrowers, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Ali Baba and the Seven Saracens, The Magic Sword, Alice in Wonderland, Jack and the Beanstalk, Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon, The Jungle Book, Tarzan's Revenge, Liane, Jungle Goddess, and The Savage Girl.

The movie is available at Amazon Prime and the quality is just the same. I read that the original negatives were damaged. Too bad, I like the sets and props, it would be nice to see them better.

A lot of Alice's shots were done without the puppets. Carol is the only human while in Wonderland.

I liked the production, poor video aside, and was glad to have picked this up. There's a DVD of the movie on Amazon, it's 10 smackaroonies, I'm betting that it's the same copy, it's a shady looking DVD. I'll be happy with this. Really, how often will I watch it again, once maybe, who knows.

You can see a copy of either the French or English version on YouTube. Links above.

Bill Bailey - Limboland 2018

Limboland is Bill Bailey's 2018 DVD of his recent tour. It was recorded at the Hammersmith Apollo. Bill jokes about and plays some music. He tells some stories and I had a laugh. There were no extras on the DVD.

Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights 2010

Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights is a Channel 4 sketch comedy show. Frankie introduces the sketches, and does a bit of stand up, before a studio audience. At least a couple of the jokes he did were also in the Sodom Tour DVD. Frankie's not for everyone but I enjoy him. Others do to, he keeps saying stuff that gets him into trouble but they keep putting him back on the TV.

The Wikipedia tells me that the title is a reference to the opioid drug Tramadol and J G Ballard's novel Cocaine Nights. Frankie said on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross that the original title was Deal With This, Retards but they made him change it. That Frankie, always pushing the envelope, then wanking on it.

There were only 6 episodes and they aired in November and December 2010. I'd seen them before, from YouTube, but decided I wanted the DVD. It's so much nicer looking. It's from the UK and the price had fallen enough to make it less than 10 bucks delivered. Weak pound and no VAT adds up to savings for me. DVDs are going out of fashion over there too. Used to be all the big comedians had a DVD out every couple or three years but now they put their tour shows on Netflix.

Each episode starts with Frankie talking to the audience, then they cut away to filmed sketches. There's even some animations. It's all very dark and dire satire with lots of death and bile. Frankie acts in many of the sketches. Not all the sketches work for me but that's common for many sketch shows. I really like Little Britain but some of the sketches weren't as funny as others. When Frankie hit the mark for me the sketches were crackling with anger focused at the sort of people who make the world a worse place. I enjoyed the stand up part of the show more than most of the sketches but I enjoy Frankie railing against the world quite a bit. He knows who the cunts are. Like I said, not for everyone.

Frankie Boyle Live - The Last Days Of Sodom 2012

Frankie Boyle sure won't appeal to everyone. His 2012 tour was called The Last Days Of Sodom and it ran from July to December. The 78 minute show was recorded at Glasgow's King's Theatre. There are plenty of jokes but who knows if you'd like them. I thought he opened well, I had several bursts of noise from my pie hole but after about 20 minutes things leveled off. It's probably a good thing, I was laughing pretty hard for a bit and I couldn't keep that up for the whole show. I was still smiling but hardly laughing out loud, near the end there were some snorts and other outbursts. There's a TV pilot called Frankie Boyle's Rehabilitation Programme as an extra. I had already seen it on YouTube and it was OK. Frankie used some of the jokes from that show in his live show. The core of FBRP has been used again more recently on Frankie Boyle's New World Order show.

Press For Time 1966

Press For Time is a 1966 Norman Wisdom film. It's based on a 1963 novel called Yea Yea Yea by Angus McGill. Norman and Eddie Leslie wrote the script and Robert Asher directed. Norman plays several characters in this movie.

Norman gets a job in a newspaper office because his Great Grandfather is the Prime Minister. Norman plays the PM and that Lady above. Norman screws up one thing after another and some of the slapstick was pretty funny. There's a bit of romance and some political commentary. It made me laugh and I'd watch it again.

The Early Bird 1965

The Early Bird is a 1965 Norman Wisdom movie. The movies aren't chronological in the set and I'm too lazy to rearrange them by date. It's directed by Robert Asher and written by Jack Davies and Norman Wisdom.

Norman is the milk delivery man for a tiny dairy, they only have ten blocks to cover. A big dairy wants to push them out and uses nasty tricks. Norman and his boss fight back as best they can and Norman's clumsiness puts a huge crack in their office building and dairy. The big dairy backs down and things go back to Norman for Norman and the dairy. It's fun enough and there's plenty of slapstick and collateral damage.