Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34113 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-10-04
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 3
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 426 minutes

DVD Description
From the co-writer of Father Ted comes the cult Channel 4 comedy show set in a secondhand bookshop. The show stars Dylan Moran as the customer hating, booze loving, owner, Bill Bailey as his more mild mannered assistant and Tamsin Greig as Fran the owner of the shop next door. This boxed set includes all three series of the show, for a total of 18 episodes including classics such as "The Big Lock-Out" and "Moo-ma And Moo-pa". This is cutting edge alternative sitcom comedy at its best and this limited edition boxed set is the easiest, and cheapest, way to experience it.

Customer Reviews

It Could Be Worse - You Could Work Here...
The next time you're having a bad day, sit down and watch Black Books. Within minutes you'll not only feel better from laughing, you will feel comforted by the fact that nobody you are ever going to meet is as cruelly sadistic and utterly bitter as Bernard Black, proprietor of the world's worst bookshop.
Of late, "quirky" has become a buzzword of comedy, almost a fashionable word to insert into a rave review, and one of which I am intensely wary, as it ordinarily implies it is of the same brand of "fun" as, for example, a businessman who thinks mouth-shaped cufflinks are "fun". However, there are few other words to adequately describe the occasional surrealness of these half-hour jaunts into the grime of Bernard, Manny and Fran's dusty world. Refreshingly avoiding the cheap laugh bought by so many comedies simply by adding in the occasional profanity, Bernard expresses his utter disdain for everyone and everything in ways which can only be described as pure creativity. If you haven't been introduced to actor and writer Dylan Moran's unique brand of anger, you're in for a treat. Meanwhile, Bill Bailey as Manny provides a delightfully childlike and endearingly terrified pincushion for Bernard's razor-sharp remarks and Tamsin Greig puts forth a superb performance as Fran, their oldest friend and faithful bringer of wine.
Full of conversations you'll be re-enacting with your friends and with a whole pile of extras such as the bizarre "Black Dolls" puppet show, this intelligent and yet simultaneously brainless comedy is exactly what you need to remind you that however bad life gets, at least you don't work at Black Books.

Timing is all
This is brilliant.
Dylan Moran is so funny. Bill Bailey is a comic genius and Tamsin Greg (Debbie from "The Archers"!!!!!) is brilliant as a comic actress. See her later work in "Green Wing" and more recently in Dr Who.
Set in a book shop where books are hardly ever sold, but still seems to attract lots of customers! The shop is run as a hobby by Bernard (Moran) to provide him with something to do other than drinking, and abusing his staff, Manny (Bailey). Fran (Greg) acts a a foil between these two characters.
Darkly funny, and brilliantly understated. Can't wait for the next series!

Another great series, sadly put to sleep after three series.
Black Books is a reenergised version of a traditional English sitcom with three strong central performances. While apart from rude interruptions of bit parts to drive the plot, it is a three person show. You'd imagine the guy who wrote and acts the pivotal role of Bernard Black to take the limelight, but without the personality of Bailey and Greig, the show couldn't have stretched three marvellous series. In fact it gets better as it goes. It works as each character is distinct from each other, each being funny in their own ways. You'd also imagine Greig to be eye candy in nice outfits (although very attractive, in contrast to the two gargoyles beside her, Margaret Thatcher could almost appear appealing). Greig is equal in comedic performance to Bailey and Moran and the better actor too (although I doubt she could match either at stand-up). All the actors are charismatic and play their parts to perfection, the grouch, the gentle oaf and the bemused who holds the other two together.

What connects them is that they're children in grown up clothes, unable to deal with reality; and from this clash comes the humour: as the three react often 'in-comprehendingly' to outside intrusions into their insular world (a dingy bookshop).

The extras are unnecessary really. The still photographs are interesting, but poor photography. The deleted scenes are deleted for clearly good reason, the bloopers are the usual, the two extra sketches are interesting, but far from essential.

Dylan has a "Monster" Dvd of his stand-up work (his "Shaun of the Dead" appearance would have been better if he'd played as Bernard Black). Bailey is in his own words "Half Troll" (and a regular on Nevermind the Buzzcocks show, on the receiving end of the almost brutalising taunts of Lamarr), Greig has appeared in some lesser sitcoms, I'm sure will appear in better acting roles, whereas I doubt Moran and Bailey will. So many lame sketch shows around now, hopefully someone will hire Moran and Bailey to write something superior to Black Books.

(Also try the brutally neglected 15 Storeys High, which ran for a couple of short seasons. BBCs display of spiteful criminal neglect. This should have ran several more seasons, at least it should have had a decently made Dvd; it's still worth watching and hoping season two will come out.)

You'll be pleased to know there is a happy ending, that they resisted a Blakes 7/ Young Ones apocalyptic finale. Sadly it never resulted in a traditional Christmas Special that Only Fools and Horses trotted out. They apparently decided to end it on a high, in similar fashion to The Office, Fawlty Towers, Spaced etc. Why run an idea into the ground...but I'd prefer a tired Black Books to Last of the Summer Wine. Oh well. for the same price you could get either: Arrested Development Season One; Three bottles of Noilly Prat with some Brie; latex sexual organs; a small machette; a carton of small calibre bullets; or Guignol's Band and London Bridge by Louis-Ferdinand Celine with enough left for a bag of natchos.