Blair Loveday
Long time fans of Blackadder will know Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are incredible at absurd and silly humour.
Then after watching Hugh Laurie with his serious drama movies, and Stephen Fry as a witty and incredibly smart man from his documentaries and QI, it’s easy to forget this.
I only discovered that the two had a sketch show embarrassingly recently. I saw some fantastic clips, but never a massive amount. Well this changed with the release of A Bit Of Fry And Laurie: The Complete Collection on DVD, and my life is the better for it!
A Bit Of Fry And Laurie is a show consisting of short skits. The collection grabs all 4 seasons encompassing 26 episodes of their brilliance. There aren’t any special features I spotted, so you are unfortunately just left to watch this timeless and brilliant comedy.
Skits vary massively from the thought provoking to the absurd.
The best thing they do is break the fourth wall, but not in the usual way.
I mean they speak to the audience plenty in some skits but some of the best comedy is when they reference the skits. One of the early ones does this best where Stephen walks up to a counter and Hugh says he’s ugly. Then Stephen says no we weren’t going to do that skit, I didn’t like it. Then they return to their starting points and do a different skit.
There are heaps of jokes that crap on their skit ideas and it’s consistently brilliant.
Then on top of that is the brilliant variation between skits.
There are some with absurd physical humour that feel like they could nestle into a Monty Python collection perfectly. Then they have some clever musical pieces scattered throughout, and it’s at it’s best when they play with language for jokes. They can vary from longer skits that play on themselves, to clever bits where a critic criticises a skit, then a new critic criticises the critic, to simple gags that last a few seconds.
It’s hard to speak too much more to it, because each bit is it’s own thing and most of them are at their funniest the first time you watch it out of the blue. But the best part is most of the jokes are amazing watching and rewatching things, as you start to notice other clever bits, or gags that are played on later, making the earlier ones funnier on the second watch.
If you at all like British comedy, clever skits, or Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, then this is a must add to your collection. A full rewatch has reminded me how brilliant they are, and it’s the perfect rewatch show for when you just want to relax and have a laugh.
