Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13506 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-08-05
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Fast Show, like Viz comic and Private Eye magazine, is one of those comedic institutions whose principal appeal is its utter predictability. The jokes in every episode are exactly the same, every sketch an only slightly different path to one of a few familiar punchlines ("I'll get me coat", "Where's me washboard?", "Scorchio!", "Suits you, Sir," and so on): once the viewer or reader is in with the jokes, they feel part of the club. This sort of reductive comedy is extremely easy to do badly: it is testament to the writing and acting of Paul Whitehouse and his team that not only are most of the set-pieces funny every time they reappear (the overly prurient tailors, the pub know-all, the Trevor Brooking-esque football pundit Ron Manager), but that each individual sketch is funny more than once.

This first series of The Fast Show does not include a couple of characters who became well-loved mainstays; neither the licentious car salesman Swiss Tony, for whom everything was "like making love to a beautiful woman", or the incomprehensible raconteur Rowley Birkin QC, had been developed at this stage. However, aficionados will regard this collection as indispensable for the beginning of the saga of awkward young aristocrat Ralph and his unrequited passion for his gardener, Ted: a funny yet oddly affecting rendering of love thwarted by circumstance.

On the DVD: The Fast Show--Series 1 on disc includes interviews with the cast, and English subtitles. There is an episode selector and an individual scene selector, though the latter is confusingly laid out. --Andrew Mueller

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
This FAST SHOW release features the finest and funniest moments of the first season. Join the crew, including Paul Whitehouse, Caroline Aherne, and Simon Day, for their initial outings of total hilarity.

Customer Reviews

The early days of something that matured into genius
The Fast Show content and jokes were being continually refined as the program progressed into the later series. Looking back now, the first series now looks like an extended pilot -- or rather multiple pilots -- for what would be someting far more rounded, mature and satisying by series 2.

There are a lot of ideas here which are weak by comparison with, for example, Rowley Birkin or Swiss Toni who didn't materialise until later. And the nature of the program -- which repeats a gag remorselessly -- shows up some of these weaker ideas.

Almost Brilliant!
The Fast Show seems to have revived the genre of the Sketch Show, but one look at the current crop gives the indication that nothing will ever match it.

This DVD contains all of the first series but suffers from a lack of extras. The sketches are not the series' best (they came in the second series) but this was a confident start and it is interesting to note the original credits sequence which seemed to give the indication that this was very much "The Paul Whitehouse show".

There a few DVDs of the programme out at the moment, but this is easily the best of the bunch. Now, when will the BBC get around to releasing the other series'?

Watching this show is very much like...
...no, mustn't mention Swiss Toni, they haven't thought of him, roight?

But this is still as funny now as when it was broadcast, which, if you haven't seen it, is very funny indeed. In fact, the first shows are parhaps funnier on re-watching as this time you know the characters, so you don't spend the first couple of shows getting to know them, instead, you can chuckle at the catchphrases before they arrive. There may even be niche in the market for a karaoke version of the show...

Bono Estente. Nuevo Chanel 9 DVD gizmo - karaokos muchos, oooh! Chris Waddle! Boutrous Boutros Ghali.

...but until then you'll have to make do with this.

I bought it, and watched it and found it very funny, so I watched it again. Which was nice.