Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37600 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-03-22
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 144 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The second series of Black Books somehow succeeded in being even further off the wall than the first. A larger team of writers no doubt helped, but Dylan Moran's greater input clearly shows. His Bernard Black doesn't get the best lines (that honour is always Bill Bailey's), but he definitely gets the best visual gags: a wine-bottle ice lolly, a dinner jacket made from tax receipts and a talent for the piano that defies logic. Aided by the hapless Fran (Tamsin Greig), the bookshop boys survive plenty of adventures, such as a touch of Dave's Syndrome, transforming into a restaurant, falling in love and even a few molluscs on the walls. Guest actors are all aware that they need to be at their funniest in order to register amid the madness: Johnny Vegas is the perfect slimy landlord, Jessica Stevenson revels in being the ultimate health-fad flake and Rob Brydon is terrific in his office-boss cameo. All this series lacks is any sense of closure for the characters, which, without the prospect of a third series, is a terrible tease. --Paul Tonks

DVD Description
Featuring all 6 episodes from Series 2:

• The Entertainer
  
• Fever
  
• The Fixer
  
• Blood
  
• Hello Sun
  
• A Nice Change

Bernard Black (Dylan Moran), proprietor of the grubby bookshop Black Books, prefers the company of his books to his customers. Devoted to the twin pleasures of excessive drinking and wilful antagonism, Bernard enriches his life and the lives of his only two friends, Manny (Bill Bailey) and Fran (Tamsin Grieg) in the process. In this second collection of episodes, Bernard finds proof positive that Manny is mad, Manny worries about the reliability of his magic hot water bottle and uses his underworld connections to help the recently unemployed Fran find a job, Fran struggles to find her inner karma in between trying to find her cigarettes and making excuses to have another drink. Under constant threat from the nasty, unfeeling outside world, the characters in Black Books attempt to maintain the haven of the bookshop even as their own talent for meaningless stupidity pitches them towards mayhem.

Special Features

• Out-takes
  
• Photo Gallery
  
• Black Dolls
  
• Audio commentary
  
• Series 3 teaser trailer

DVD Technical Information:

• Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Anamorphic
  
• Main soundtrack: English Stereo
  
• Subtitles: English for the Hard of Hearing
  
• Disc Format: Single Sided, Dual Layer – DVD-9
  
• Running Time: 144 mins approx. (episodes), 20 mins approx. (extra features)
  
• PAL
  
• Region Code: 2

Customer Reviews

The funniest sit-com ever created
A situation comedy about a man who owns a bookshop and his friends. Doesn't sound like the funniest sit-com ever does it? Wrong! This is without a doubt, the funniest sit-com that I have ever seen (and I am a big fan of sit-coms).

Dylan Moran as the fantastic, customer hating, Bernard Black is truly the ultimate comic creation. He owns the bookshop "Black Books", the only problem being that he hates selling books because then he has to order more. When he is paired with the odd Manny (Bill Bailey) and the quirky Fran (Tamsin Greig), you get a television show to beat all television shows.

With the 6 episodes:
The Entertainer,
Fever,
The Fixer,
Blood,
Hello Sun,
and A Nice Change.

These episodes coupled with out-takes, a photo gallery, audio commentary, series 3 trailer and special feature "Black Dolls", make this a DVD that no-one who even remotely enjoys comedy should miss.

Buy this DVD today.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any funnier.....
How do you follow up one of the most original sitcoms of the last 20 years? Well if your Dylan Moran, easy, you just keep to the same bizzarre plot lines and happenings, add a bit more stupidness, and Bobs you uncle, unless he's called something else. I love Black Books, it's stupid, it's clever but above all, it's genuinly funny. The laugh out loud moments are too numerous to mention but Manny playing the piano from the inside with spoons while Fran and Bernard fool their piano teacher and girlfriend respectivly is just one of them! In this series I feel there is more imputus on the plot, the first series was a lot looser but still equally funny, and there's a few swipes at big corporation book shops and criminals who feel the need to sell their stories which are touched on brilliantly. The only main difference is that in this series, Fran has lost her job and apart from one episode where she gets a job in an office where she has no idea what to do, ends up getting promoted after her presentation which involes drawing a circle and an arrow on a flip chart only to get sacked after a mix up with an underworld boss, she just tends to wander round getting drunk with Bernard. I feel I also have to disagree with the people who say Fran is unfunny. She's exactly the foil that Bernard and Manny need; she's just funnier in a more subtle way to the other twos more physical approch. The discussion she has with her landlord, played brilliantly seedy by Johnny Vegas, about her shrinking bedroom is fantastic and when you think that she's the sanest one of the three, it's quite scary!
Basically, buy this now! The extras are brilliant, the writings fantastic and it's the funniest thing you can own! One slight bug bear, why is it that when I buy series 1 and 2 seperatly, they then bring out a complete box set of all 3 series! There all around me like a nest of pigs!!!!!

Absoloute Superbness
If you liked series 1, then you will LOVE series 2! Putting Bill Bailey and Dylan Moran together in a sitcom was the best idea anyone has ever had. They work superbly together.

Bernard black, an eccentric, foul tempered and drink-fuelled proprioter, owns the grubby bookshop, Black Books. His only two employees being Manny, a hairy, laid back and considerate assistant - Bernards punch bag. And Fran, Bernards only other friend, she craves a social life and a boyfriend. Her pathetic attempts to achieve this are very humiliating.

Black Books is a must see!!