Clatterford – The Complete Season One (BBC DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: B-
After
amazing hit TV shows like French &
Saunders and Absolutely Fabulous,
the great comedy troop that includes Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and site
favorite Joanna Lumley is back with comedy of a different kind in Clatterford – The Complete Season One. The show is a loving and funny spoof of small
town England, with gossip, agitations, baked goods and even wasted lives.
To try to
cut down the misery, there is a Ladies Guild and they try to make things
better, but dysfunction and new challenges result instead, all to comic
effect. Unlike the previous shows, the
humor is more subtle with the strangest choice being Lumley playing an
absent-minded septuagenarian who can barely speak English properly. This double DVD set has its moments and
though I was not laughing until it hurt, I really liked the ambitious attempt
to try comedy from a different direction.
That makes Saunders, French, Lumley and company the most important comic
talents on U.K. TV today and I dare say they have little competition in the
U.S. to be concerned with.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 x 1 image is soft, looks like it was shot in
digital High Definition and is not as color rich as previous Sanders shows,
though in this case, it might be by choice.
Detail is an issue, but the visual gags come across well enough. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is simple and
clear, so you can hear all the jokes, but there are no surrounds. The 2006 Christmas Special is the only
extra and it is as amusing as the other shows.
- Nicholas Sheffo
