I was surprised to find out this is Mark Watson’s first DVD release, he seems to have been a good performer for years. Some things are worth waiting for though, so how does he do?

Please note although I don’t tell his jokes in this article, there are some spoilers so please leave if you don’t want to know a thing about it!

Ok now I’ve got the spoiler alert out the way…The gig begins in an excellent engaging way. Mark sitting quietly at a laptop on the stage, typing on a big screen things about people as they walk in. Loved this start and had those who go in early already laughing.

Once everyone had made their way in he still doesn’t appear on the stage, but somewhere else, I won’t spoil it where, you’ll just have to watch and see! Once again more off the cuff comedy engaging the audience.

Moments later and he finally makes his way to the stage to begin his stand-up routine. 1 minute in and it is a stark reminder this boy talks fast, and mumbles quite a bit. However I do like this, it is a different style to the clear cut Jimmy Carr’s and Sean Locke’s who never misplace a word. Mark’s stuttery delivery makes him even funnier!

If you haven’t seen him before, his stand-up is one of story-telling. With no props, no stupid dances, no crazy voices. Some of his gags to drag on a smidgen but generally his timing is good, and the laughs flow nicely. During the DVD I did laugh out loud constantly. He is a very good stand-up comedian.

Another thing I like about his style of comedy, is that it is often mocking himself and self deprecating. Rather then cracking jokes about minorities he goes the other way, and takes the piss out of his own personality and life!

The performance was 70 minutes long, a reasonable length I felt. It could have perhaps done with being broken up in the middle though as it is just pure talking, and it can make it begin to feel like a slight drag towards the finish. Which, on that topic, wasn’t his strongest point. His finishing joke really needed to be funnier, it was good, but it wasn’t the grandest of finishes.

There are quite a few extras including a tour diary. Randomly, their is also a clip of a man proposing to his girlfriend at the live show! Of all the extras the best one by far is a 20 minute video of Mark performing at the Bloomsbury Theatre a few years back, very funny and a nice addition to the DVD.

Overall I really enjoyed the DVD. Mark Watson’s performance was very funny, he is a top stand up comedian, it’s a good length feature, and a nice few extras to boot. Recommended. 8.5/10.

It is available to buy now from Amazon for £6.72.

Release date: November 28th 2011
Studio: 2entertain

The one-line master is back with another DVD, it is from his latest tour ‘Joke-amotive’. His previous releases have been well received, so how do this one do?

I pop the DVD in and the menu quickly loads up, it feels like a kids program. Very cheesy graphics with corny background music, this is certainly a Tim Vine creation!

The set follows on the corniness, carrying on the theme, it looks good though, a small but interesting set. He opens with a funny song, as he brings us all aboard the punaway train. This is definitely like something from a kids show!

Through-out the performance the catchy songs reappear, often completely random and pointless, which is what makes this style of comedy funny.

As for his one-liners – he throws them out a great speed! Even take a sip of your drink and you can find you miss a gag. His jokes are aided with lots of stage props also. Some of his jokes I found myself literally with my head in my hands saying “oh my god, that joke is so bad”, the sort of one-liner your dad would come out with at a party. But somehow I still chuckle. Plenty of other gags though are genuinely good and I felt more respectable and comfortable with myself for laughing at them! I have no idea how many jokes he told in total in this performance, but I know it was a huge amount.

No random shouts from the audience, or any kind of heckling in this gig, not that sort of performance. If you are after something fun and harmless for a laugh, perhaps around Christmas, this is ideal for all the family (it is only classified PG so is safe for all ages).

On the DVD you do also get a few extras, which include 3 short-flims made by Vine, their is also a tour movie and another song from the gig not in the main feature.

Conclusion
This certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. If you like edgy comedy about adult subjects this certainly won’t be for you, the fact it’s a PG says it all. But if you are after some family-friendly fun and are a fan of one-liners you will love this. And with some many gags this is good value for money. I rate it 7.5/10.

It is available to buy at Amazon UK for £6.99. Watch the trailer below.

Release date: November 21st 2011
Studio: Spirit Entertainment Limited

Stand-up American comedian Reginald D. Hunter has taken his live tour to DVD with this release. It was recorded at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo in London.

This is the first time I have seen any of this comedians solo work. So I went with an open mind, although having seen him on various TV programs I do like his uniqueness, quite a stumbley (I appreciate that is not a real word!) delivery, he’s not smooth talking but it works well. And he’s came across as a nice guy. I looked forward to this.

The big man strides onto the stage and says his hellos. After only about 30 seconds of being on stage a member of the audience shouts something. It was a quality reply from Reginald which earned some major laughs, a very good start I felt.

On with the gig then as he begins his stories. Starting with race. Then continuing on with race, for what seemed like a long time. I checked the time on the DVD and I been watching for over 20minutes. I got a tad worried that was the only topic he would talk about! I expected some but perhaps not this many. However the material was essentially quite funny, just perhaps a bit ‘all at once’ rather then being spread through the performance.

My worries on race proved unfounded as he moved on to some funny observations about British people, and also his own American people. He then moved on to the topic of sex, once again I felt he stayed on it too long. Funny material but the same topic gets annoying after so long. In fact during the performance, more of his material was about sex rather then race!

His topics of choice weren’t quite what I expected. Having seen him on the television before on programs such as ‘Have I Got News For You’ I anticipated him being more political and perhaps slightly thought provoking whilst still being funny. Turns out he just likes to talk about black people and sex! Slightly disappointing, as I did find the Reginald D. Hunter I saw on the TV slightly funnier.

One thing I was impressed by was his willingness to say stuff that many comedians wouldn’t. Some of the responses from the audience (notably the female members) were brilliant, one woman’s jaw almost hit the floor at one point her mouth was so wide! However I didn’t feel he was saying the things he was just to be controversial, Frankie Boyle says stuff purely to be as gross and shocking as he can, whereas I felt Reginald used the shock factor moderately and didn’t over cook it. This aspect I really liked.

Conclusion
Overall I would recommend this DVD. Don’t expect the Reginald you may have seen on shows like ‘Have I Got News For You’ though. I do wish the topics were a bit more mixed up in the gig, and he perhaps covered slightly more topics. However I did find the material he had funny, and I like the few ‘gasp’ moments he produced. Overall I would rate it 7/10.

The DVD is available now, it costs £6.81 to buy from Amazon UK.

The veteran comedian is back once again with yet another release, this one is called ‘Cornish Ambassador’. The release date is November 14th 2011, just in time for Christmas. It is available to order from all good online retailers, at Amazon UK it is currently priced at £13.16.

So is it any good? And up to the usual Jethro standards?

The gig starts off in very typical fashion, with a filthy joke, involving his testicles and a female nurse. Typical Jethro! No mucking about, straight in with the smut.

The DVD is broken up with Interludes of Jethro reading out funny letters. I like the format as it breaks up the gig and makes it feel like it all goes so quick.

The gags throughout the DVD are as you’d expect, a lot of smut and sleeze, often involving his wife. It is all very similar to his previous work, same style, topics and wording. Although the jokes I hadn’t heard before, they are similar to past ones. But I guess this is what happens when you have released over 20 stand-up DVDs!

The show finishes off with Jethro singing a nice Cornwall song, living up to the title of the tour.

This was up there as possibly the best I’ve seen of Jethro. Admittedly I’ve not seen all of his performances (so many to watch!!), I know he has a lot of DVDs so I can’t say this is his best work, as I’m not in a position to compare them all, but of what I’ve seen this was by far my favourite gig of his. I had a lot of ‘laugh out loud’ moments, rather then just chuckles.

Unfortunately it is only just over an hour long, which I found disappointing, would have like to have seen closer to 90minutes. I guess they do say always leave them wanting more. The extras are also thin on the ground, their is one called ‘Classic Camborne’ which is just Jethro listening to some of his past work on an old style radio, and also some bloopers. But that’s it.

Due to it’s shortness and lack of features I can only give it 7/10 overall, but the actual gig will have you in stitches.

If you’re a loyal Jethro fan this is another must to add to the collection. You can order it now from the Amazon website.

Official release date: November 14th 2011
Studio: Universal Pictures UK

If you didn’t manage to catch any of the new comedy ‘This Is Jinsy’ on Sky Atlantic, you can now see it all in your own time thanks to the release of the DVD.

If you haven’t seen any of the program, here is the original trailer:

Jinsy is a fictional island, full of weird and wonderful characters. The show follows the islanders through their adventures, focusing on Maven and Sporall who look over the island and try to ensure all remains well for the inhabitants.

I really enjoyed the series. In my original review of the first couple of episodes I described it as:

Original, funky, funny, unpredictable and well produced

And it lived up to this throughout all 8 episodes. If you are in to oddball funky comedy, such as Mighty Boosh or The League of Gentlemen then you will love this, as it is similar, however if you hate those programs I would recommend you steer clear of this one too.

My favourite episode was 3, closely followed by 7. Both absolutely brilliant, and stood out for me even above the others despite enjoying the whole series. I won’t put any spoilers here though!

Extras you also get are; Never before seen clips, Jinsy karaoke and in-character comedies. The extras are a bit thin on the ground for me, would like to have seen a few more. I think when buying a DVD you should be given plenty of extras as a thanks for paying your money for the DVD, because in actual fact most programs are now repeated and if you have Sky you can just throw it on series link, and job done, you have all the episodes and no reason to buy the DVD. So I feel its a shame there are so few extras.

Overall I rate the first series 8/10, if you are a fan of this sort of comedy you will love it, if you don’t like this style of humour, it’s one to avoid!

The DVD is available now from all good retailers, such as Amazon UK, and plenty of rubbish ones too.

Having enjoyed a lot of the previous Robot Chicken series and spoofs I was looking forward to this new DVD.

Released on July 4th 2011 it is available to buy in all good DVD stores, and of course, some rubbish ones as well. Amazon sell it for £5.40. But is it any good?

Right from the start it is clear it carrys on the Robot Chicken style in exactly the same way as it has been previously. This time though the story is a bit different, as they just go all out and spoof the entire Star Wars franchise! With a depth of characters appearing throughout.

The sketches are as you expect, short, punchy and funny, some only a few seconds long will still make you laugh out loud.

The production of this episode feels even better to me then previous ones, they may have changed nothing, but for some reason it feels slightly more polished perhaps.

For me overall it is a little bit better then the previous 2 episodes, which says something given how good they were. And this one is an hour long, so more to enjoy then previously, great considering it is stop motion production.

Here are some funny quotes I noted whilst watching:

• Hippies suck ass in every galaxy
• Hence forth you shall be known as Darth Vader. Thank you my master…. Hey before you go, my face is really warm, is everything ok up here?!
• When the face is a prune then action goes boom!! Pruneface, Pruneface, Pruneface…
• I look like I have a scrotum for a face, what am I supposed to call myself, Darth Syphilis
• Clean up on isle my shorts!

DVD

As with previous DVDs you also get a good set of extras to sift through, including deleted scenes, trailers, commentaries, gag reel and interviews with Seth Green and the other guys behind the production.

The show still only has somewhat a cult following, and I believe it should get more credit then it does. If you’re a fan this is another one to make sure you watch.

Released on July 4th 2011 you can order it now. Here is a trailer:

The legendary Scottish comedian is back with yet another DVD release, this time from his twenty sell-out nights (which caused a major ticket website to crash!) recently performed at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. Thus it is aptly named Live in London 2010 and is available from Nov 15th.

Billy delivers his usual style of performance with a series of stories of things that have happened in his life. I don’t want to include too many spoilers but he covers various topics such as; his audience age, the woman in his sat nav, a midget and his arm tattoo.

A funny theme throughout the gig was the cheering every time he mentioned a place. He said he may as well have just read out an atlas all night and he could have brought the roof down! Needless to say each mention of a location caused a series of loud shouts from the audience.

At times it did feel like the stories drag a little, but he hangs on to your attention long enough to then deliver the gag. And he gets it spot on nearly every time, forget lots of laughter, each round is greeted by huge amounts of clapping as well which is always a sign of a comedian on top!

His delivery is not quite as smooth as it used to be (not that he was ever the smoothest any way), but now at the age of 67 – turns 68 on Nov 24 – he can be excused! And in fact his moments of “fuck, I forgot where I was” after diverting in a story are actually quite funny.

There are no extras on the DVD, a shame in my opinion as I think all DVDs should have some extras for fans who bother to pay their money for the DVD. But I understand Billy doesn’t have extras on his previous releases so I guess this is to be expected.

If you’re a fan of Billy I’m sure you will watch this DVD no matter what I say. Even as he gets older he still possesses the skill to hold an audience and give you deep belly laughs!

The DVD is available from November 15th and costs £4.85 at Amazon plus delivery. You can also get it on blu-ray. Here is a trailer:

He is back, no introduction needed for this man. This is his fourth stand-up DVD, called Science, it follows Animals, Politics and Fame. It is released on November 22nd and no doubt will be on many Christmas lists! But is it any good?

Start
It has somewhat of a drab start, very safe, quite bland jokes. Getting a bit bored after 5 minutes already. And then out he splurts a gag about God giving aids to African babies, suddenly I remembered who I am watching and we are off and running!

Science
It’s called that (and has a brilliant set to match), but it gets about 1 mention, and that takes him 30minutes. He even jokingly says himself he should have perhaps named it ‘an investigation into the rational and non rational’. So not overly sure why he bothered to call it Science, don’t expect much talk on the topic in the way he did on his previous stand-up tours.

Jokes
Ricky carrys on his usual style of comedy and topics, with things such as; serial killers, heroin, fat people, rape, Susan Boyle and paedophilia all getting a look in! What else did you expect from this comedian.

He also does his usual routine of using a big projector and whipping a book out, displaying pages of the book on the screen. I won’t spoilt it what book it is, but this part of the show was the funniest for me, and definitely the most successful.

One area he falls down is his regular talking about himself and his success, this joke is now wearing thin. We know he is successful and fair play, but the jokes about it feel old and boring, new fresh material is required instead of relying on still going on about his success. Perhaps shows a slight weakness given the audience doesn’t respond much to those gags, yet he still does them.

DVD Extras
There aren’t many but the few which are on the DVD are very good. ‘Meet Karl Pilkington 2′ is the usual funny stuff from Karl, this actually is discussing Science and various parts of it. There is also ‘When Karl met Warwick’ which is also brilliant and seriously funny.

Conclusion
Science is not as strong as some of his other work. But when something is so good I guess it’s hard to beat so I don’t want to sound too critical! This is another good performance from Mr Gervais to add to the collection, if you like him and enjoyed his other DVDs then this is a must (I know you will watch it anyway no matter what I say!) as he remains one of our best.

The DVD is available from November 22nd 2010. At Amazon it is £4.34 to buy. Here is a trailer:

Metalocalypse follows a metal band who go by the name of Dethklok, as we see the funny adventures they get up to both on-stage and off-stage.

The first series got plenty of rave reviews, and now the second series has been released on DVD in the UK.

The production of this show isn’t as cool as other [adult swim] shows such as Robot Chicken, but it makes up for it with some images that can still make you squint, for example they are very good at spotty hairy arses which make you want to look away!

As with most [adult swim] shows the episodes are only short, just over 10 minutes each. I think this is good because at times this program can start to feel like it is repeating and often all feels very similar. And does at times definitely lack the laughs it needs to be considered really good.

My favourite character is William Murderface, who’s very heavy lisp in itself makes me chuckle. He is constantly attempting to appear important and be popular, but it doesn’t work! They all have their moments though and there are no real weaknesses in the main characters.

On the DVD you also get your usual extras such as deleted scenes and interviews, as well as some cool music videos.

Conclusion
Fans of metal will definitely get the most enjoyment out of this show, partly due to the tributes in it (and no doubt I missed some as well!), but I expect most fans of this style of comedy to like it, if you “don’t get it” you will find it awful, but if this is your style of humour it is worth checking out.

This is the second episode of the Robot Chicken take on Star Wars, I’ve already reviewed the first episode (read article) which I thought was good, so lets take a peek at the second. As the chicken strikes back to once again travel to a galaxy far, far away.

The DVD is available now from HMV, or from the end of October you can buy both episodes together. On the DVD you have the regular broadcast version, but also a special extended edition which is 15 minutes longer, so even if you watched the broadcast version this is still worth getting.

The Return
In this episode many of the same characters feature as in the first one, on their mission to capture Han Solo.

Crawl Text
The famous opening crawl text of Star Wars glides up somewhat modified, in text language, complete with LOLs, OMG and all sorts, there is no chance of reading it all as it moves up at speed and with text language even the biggest chav couldn’t understand!

Serious Funnies
I won’t put in any spoilers in to this review (I know plenty of people hate that!) but this has to possibly be the funniest thing I’ve seen from [Adult Swim], the first ep was good but this one takes it further, with none stop laughs, and I mean proper laughs not just little smiles! All the characters are in, with some ridiculous plots and lines, your typical Seth Green production!

Extras
Much like on the first DVD there are some cool extras as well. Including 2 bonus episodes, both very funny! I think I laughed almost as much at them as I did at the main episode, especially at the smurfs and notably the line “Chronic Masturbator Smurf was just found with his wang chopped off stuffed up his smurfhole!”. Other extras include; production design, video blogs, trailers and animation meetings.

Conclusion
Once again a strong bit of work on [adult swim], if you’re into this style of comedy (or like your Star Wars parodies) I really do recommend you check it out as it doesn’t get enough exposure on our screens. You will have seen nothing like it before! I rate it 9/10.