Release Date: November 2000 Publisher: 2 Entertain Video SYNOPSIS:
The straight-talking star of the Staines Massive returns with a compilation of highlights and out-takes from 'Da Ali G Show'. Includes Ali in the USA, visiting NASA and the National Rifle Association, and interviews with Peter Stringfellow and Jarvis Cocker.
REVIEW:
I’ve been a fan of Ali G for years so it’s always good to have a chance to dip into a bit of modern nostalgia and sit back to enjoy some alternate comedy, yet for all that the show does right, this series really was the end for Ali as big budget seemed to spell the doom for a character that worked better with very little.
Whilst I had a lot of fun with the show, the cracks begin to tell in this series as the character changes to try and be something that I felt he wasn’t intended to be to try and liven up the aspects for the series. Yes you had a lot of fun with guests, you could see how the comedy worked but when you threw in “rapping” it felt like it took it way to far showing the huge cracks in Sasha’s ability.
All round, this one is more for the fans than for the general consumer and whilst there is something for everyone within, it is dated. A great shame but there are golden moments within.
Release Date: 26/09/13 Publisher: Random House Books SYNOPSIS:
As long as there has been crime there has been crap crime. From the Garden of Eden onwards, most criminals must ave been at least a bit crap - or else they wouldn't have been caught, right? OK, some real-life rogues like Bonnie and Clyde, or fictional villains like Moriarty, make breaking the law seem pretty glamorous. But not the failed felons banged up inside this book. Crap Crimes is a hilarious compendium of criminal stupidity - from the woman who went to the police to complain that she had been sold poor-quality cocaine, to the burglar who left his phone charging in his house. If you need proof that crime does not pay - or you just want a good laugh - then this is the book for you.
REVIEW:
This title for me, is what I would call a bathroom book, a title that you can quite happily leave in the smallest room of your house to dip into whenever you need (and a great way to distract guests). The stories are all from the real world and when you see how incompetent some of these “masterminds” are you cannot believe that the book wasn’t made up. (Think of this as perhaps a non-death Darwin Award for Criminals.)
It is fun, it has a good few bits in there to make you laugh and with some moments that will have you scratching your head wondering why these people did the things they did. Finally throw into the mix the chance to see this as the Jerry Springer Book of Crime (if you want to describe it to friends) and you’ll find that the odd break you take from day, can be something to cheer you right up. Great stuff.
SYNOPSIS:
Following four sell-out UK tours and two best-selling DVDs, multi award-winning comedian Rhod Gilbert returns with this eagerly awaited DVD.
Rhod's stand-up rants on life's minor irritations are legendary, but this year, he's a more mellow fellow altogether. After a course of anger management therapy, he's now so laid-back he even let someone tattoo a Battenberg on him.
In this brand new show Rhod recounts the hilarious and turbulent lead-up to a make-or-break trip to New York with his on-off girlfriend. Will the new, chilled-out Rhod get his girl and live happily ever after, or will it be microwaved baked potato for one again? Could it be the Mr Angry of comedy as you've never seen him before?
Special Features
• Rhod vs. Hecklers
• Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience - Tattooist episode
REVIEW:
Whilst I’m not up with a lot of the modern comics, one night when there was nothing much on the satalite channels I ended up on Comedy Central and discovered Rhod Gilbert (this was his “Cat that Looked Like Nicolas Lyndhurst” show) which I have to say made me laugh, so much so that I vowed to remember his name.
So when I heard about this DVD coming out I absolutely had to watch it so set it a particularly tough challenge, to make me laugh after a pretty crappy day. So sitting down, I started the DVD off, cold, miserable and quite annoyed. (So much so that I wanted one of Rhod’s diary pages.) What I got for my time was 122 minutes of laughter, about this years ups and down’s, his relationships, what used to annoy him and of course discovered that a lot of things that got to him, were also the sort of things that get to all of us. Add to the laughter, some wonderful asides, some cracking observations and back it all up around one particular event that is key to the whole tour, his Flaming Battenburg Tattoo (the obtaining of which is presented as a Special Feature for viewers to watch, alongside him dealing with Hecklers.)
All in I had a lot of fun and this really did pick me up after a day when I thought that nothing would. Its funny, its witty and whilst there is bad language, it was something that I’m definitely going to share with other family members who will appreciate it just as much as I did. I suspect that at some point I’ll have to go and see him live, so if you’re reading this Rhod, thank you for the gift of laughter.
Release Date: 02/02/11 SYNOPSIS: From the acclaimed author of The Gone-Away World - a new riveting action spy thriller, blistering gangster noir, and howling absurdist comedy: a propulsively entertaining tale about a mobster's son and a retired secret agent who are forced to team up to save the world.
All Joe Spork wants is a quiet life. He repairs clockwork and lives above his shop in a wet, unknown bit of London. The bills don't always get paid and he's single and has no prospects of improving his lot, but at least he's not trying to compete with the reputation of Mathew "Tommy Gun" Spork, his infamous criminal dad.
Edie Banister lives quietly and wishes she didn't. She's nearly ninety and remembers when she wasn't. She's a former superspy and now she's... well... old. Worse yet, the things she fought to save don't seem to exist anymore, and she's beginning to wonder if they ever did.
When Joe fixes one particularly unusual device, his life is suddenly upended. The client is one Edie Banister. And the device? It's a 1950s doomsday machine. And having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the government and a diabolical South Asian dictator, Edie's old arch-nemesis. With Joe's once-quiet world now populated with mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realises that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she gave up years ago, and pick up his father's old gun...
REVIEW: To be honest I really wasn’t sure what to make of this title from the book blurb, yes it had all the hallmarks of a Thriller but there was a little something else added , a touch of comedy, which at times, can fall quite short for the reader.
What unfurls is an adventure that has some delightfully eccentric characters, some wicked twists and for me, Nick has done for the Spy Thriller what Tom Holt has done for the Urban Fantasy. Its quirky, it has some wonderful twists and the authorly writing style keeps it not only friendly but a story that you have trouble dragging yourself away from.
Add to this some great dialogue, a few murders and mechanical madness to the max which keeps the tale running at full throttle. Cracking.
Release Date: 13/10/11 SYNOPSIS: Beyond a Joke is a celebration of comedy - one of the modern world's most dominant and compelling art forms - but it is also the story of comedy's dark side, homing in on the scandals that have surrounded some of light entertainment's biggest stars, and telling it as it is, featuring quotes from those that were there at the time. How the devoted laughter of those fans onstage never seemed to be enough for these moody, prickly, ego-driven entertainers. How they would constantly seek more thrills when the curtain came down. The offstage antics of certain comedians would make even rock stars blush. The number of comedians who have had to deal with paternity suits would make a book in itself.
While Beyond a Joke explores the extremes of this world it also addresses another question. Are comedians naturally dysfunctional, or does the stress and pressure of the job make them dysfunctional? Ruby Wax once told me that she had builders in her house who were just as emotionally unstable as most stand-up comedians she had worked with. But they don't want to go on stage and plead with an audience to love them. There is something about wanting to make strangers laugh for a living that is intrinsically, fundamentally, strange. Stand-up is doubly peculiar in that respect. It's just the one person emotionally naked on the stage in front of maybe thousands of people. No safety net, no back up. It takes a particularly odd person to want to pursue comedy as a career. And, as Beyond a Joke will reveal, the behaviour of comedians once they are successful in their chosen career makes them even odder.
Bruce Dessau is the only person who could write this book. From Russell Brand slashing his chest onstage to Jo Brand trashing a friend's car on the motorway, he has heard it all. Bruce Dessau knows where the bodies are buried.
REVIEW: There’s a popular song called the Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson, and when you think about it, a lot of professional comedians have had traumatic or dire upbringings which, according to Bruce Dessau is why they seek approval so much from the audience. This book takes the reader on a journey from the birth of British Comedy up to modern times with some of the more recent crop of humourists.
Whilst this book does deal with the darker issues within the comedy circuit that led to Jo Brand on more than one occasion (a former Psychiatric Nurse) to say that some of her contemporaries should seek professional help, a fair part of it is more based around the exploits of the comedians away from the circuit which neither enhances or adds anything to this title. All in its OK, but with a lot of the book spending a lot of time about the personal deviances then it’s a title that will be only for a select few. A great shame to be honest.
Release Date: 15/09/11 SYNOPSIS: Robert Rankin is one of the great British eccentrics, standing alongside Viv Stanshall, Spike Milligan and Neil Innes, amongst others. 'To call Rankin irreverent doesn't begin to describe just how very good he is at playing with the rules', says the MIRROR, while THE DAILY EXPRESS says: 'Everybody should read at least one Robert Rankin in their life' - and it's right. THE INDEPENDENT maintains: 'He is an author best read in large doses. His impressively individual style means that he becomes funnier the more you read him', THE OBSERVER admires ' the stark raving genius of Rankin . . . the plot comes together with alarming and deformed brilliance' and the MAIL ON SUNDAY claims 'Rankin does for England what Spike Milligan does for Ireland. There can be no higher praise'. MAXIM calls him 'Fiendishly clever and joyously funny . . . a brilliant imagination', and SFX think he's 'Oscar Wilde meets Kurt Vonnegut in the genetics lab of classic fantasy humour'. The newest opus from the Master of Far Fetched Fiction will enhance his reputation even further: it's time to stop Rankin being a hidden gem and make him the National Treasure his fans already believe him to be.
REVIEW: If you want an author that gives the reader something unusual, unsuspected and of course unrepentant then you have to try the mad scientist of fiction, Robert Rankin. He’s takes the weird, the far-fetched and of course the imagination by blending it together through a whole host of scientific equipment to see what the final result will reveal and as usual this title is absolute dynamite.
It’s quirky, it’s hard to put down and when you do, you often grab it back up again, almost afraid of it exploding in your face or dissipating before your next reading session and promise yourself just one more chapter before you switch the lights out. Finally add to this an unique writing style, an identifiable voice and of course a hero to the masses and you really have to try one of Britain’s most eccentric writers to date which makes this title a real triumph.
