Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1142 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-10-30
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Full Screen, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 5
• Running time: 767 minutes

Synopsis
All four series of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie's witty sketch show. All your favourite characters are present and counted for, including yuppy couple John and Peter and secret agent Tony Mercheson.

Customer Reviews

Super, top-drawer alternative comedy!
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are two phenomenally talented comedian/actors. I'd first seen them acting in various episodes of Blackadder. Then one Friday night early in 1989 I stumbled across their first full "Bit of Fry & Laurie" series. From that moment I've been a huge fan!

There's a classic send-up of the OTT drama "Howard's Way", in which a Uttoxeter health-club is run as though it were a huge multi-national! There's hilarious, deliberate bad acting when Tony Merchison (Laurie) works for the Secret Service and reports to his incredibly naïve boss "Control" (Fry). But my personal favourites are the "one-off" sketches; Mr. Nipple is embarrassed about his surname so calls himself "Mr..." then drops a stapler on the table. Gelliant Gutfright tells us the spooky tale of "Pat Ferrick and his red hat". You'll find clever, original dialogue popping up in a Head-teacher's office, in restaurants, on airfields, in courtrooms, at baptismal fonts, around shopping malls and at a myriad of other locations. There's also convincing impersonations of David Coleman, Richard Whitely, Jonathan Ross, Robert Robinson, Henry Kelly and many others...

This tastefully presented boxed-set also contains some bonus material, such as the 1987 "Pilot" plus the 1982 "Cambridge Footlights Review", which includes Tony Slattery and the exceptionally talented Emma Thompson (Hugh Laurie's girlfriend at the time).

A must have for fans of british comedy
I agree with the previous reviews. This box set is a must have.
I've discovered Hugh Laurie only in 2007 (yes, I know....) and saw those sketches in a place you know. If I had never seen the sketches on this place I wouldn't have known they existed.
It's a pleasure to have them all. I just have a complaint : there's no booklet with the titles of the sketches, the titles of the songs (once again, there's a place where you can find them...).
As I'm french, I appreciate the english subtitles.
There's another extra : The Cambridge Footlights review (1982) on disc 2.

Entertaining although self-indulgent
I'm generally a fan of both of the stars of this series, having watched much of their work and read most of their books. This was a reasonably successful TV comedy sketch show which I remembered as having some funny moments but being rather mannered and self-indulgent. Well, I was right - but it is generaly quite entertaining, and they do their best to break a lot of the clichés of comedy sketches.
It's not brilliant and some of it is repetitive, such as the end-of-show cocktail, but if you like the two actors, you'll probably find quite a lot to enjoy here.