Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2139 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-08-18
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Volume One of Not the Nine O'Clock News comprises 98 minutes of early material from the sketch show that ran between 1979 and 1982. Starring Rowan Atkinson, Griff Rhys-Jones, Mel Smith and Pamela Stephenson and coscripted by Richard (Blackadder) Curtis among others, it wasn't especially ground-breaking by the standards of Monty Python or contemporary series such as The Young Ones, but it did provide some pretty blunt belly-laughs at the major social and political concerns of the era: Thatcher, Reagan, police brutality, the prospect of nuclear war. The latter makes for an excellent Question Time spoof, in which, with the four-minute warning having sounded, a panel of politicians continue bleating on their own agenda ("Three million people are going to die unemployed!").

Atkinson's stuff is among the best here, be it as a hideous young Tory, or as Gerald the Gorilla, now civilised to a fault by the captor who caught him in the wild. ("Wild? I was livid!") The much-repeated bit of him walking into a tree, however, doesn't work as he clearly anticipates the collision. While the musical elements look inevitably dated and a lengthy sketch on darts players boozing reaches the "Yeah, we get the point" mark long before it reaches its end, it's surprising how topical much of this material remains decades on--a sketch involving an agonising gay vicar springs to mind--while time hasn't eroded the quality of much of the writing.

On the DVD: Not the Nine O'Clock News on disc comes with no extra features. --David Stubbs

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
First broadcast in 1979, NOT THE NINE O'CLOCK NEWS was one of the initial wave of series that brought "alternative" comedy into the mainstream via British television in the early 1980s. With fewer rough edges than The Young Ones, it found an audience of six million viewers and launched the careers of its stars: Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones, Pamela Stephenson and Rowan Atkinson. This disc features over three hours of the best sketches.

Customer Reviews

one of the best ever
yes, not the nine o'clock news is one of the best ever but why oh why do we have to have the "best of" - I loved NTNOCN and would like to see the whole series and not just the best of selected by the BBC...great comedy which even my kids enjoy (!!!which shows it isn't dated) - please please just release the lot!!!!!!!

A nostalgic but jumbled collection
Seeing Not The Nine O'Clock News again is like watching any favourite old comedy show - some bits are still funny, and others frankly haven't dated too well. Most of the content here (and in volume 2) - is good, and will raise a laugh with fans of the show from the days when it was first shown.

But there are some serious flaws. Firstly, both volumes are completely jumbled in terms of sketches being shown out of chronological sequence, and you get the feeling the programmes have been gutted ruthlessly for these DVDs. So, for example, we get the last ever song of the entire series - the risque "Kinda Lingers" - shown half-way through DVD 1, rather than more meaningfully at the end of DVD 2.

Secondly, lots of good material has simply been omitted - presumably because it's so dated, risque, lost, or planned for any further DVD releases.

This is a real shame, because other comedy series have been faithfully released by the BBC in series order.

Highlights - despite the icon status that the Two Ronnies have now attained in British comedy, one can't help but feel that the biting "Two Ninnies" was - and remains - absolutely spot on.

Lowlights - the sketches shot outside show just what a drab, miserable place Britain was in the late seventies, early eighties. Was it really like that?

another comedy from the 80`s
well written by then rising stars.it could do with the same treatment as drop the dead donkey dvds with information and the news stories of the time to help the younger viewers with the jokes.