Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive

Customer Reviews:

It's a bit of fun.......2007-06-20

This is undoubtedly the best thing to ever come out of BBC 3. It solidifies Rob Brydon's reputation not only as a sharp standup, improvisor, impressionist and actor, but also as a great writer. After Peep Show, this is my favourite comedy on TV. It's witty, deadpan, and hits the nail on the head every time. You won't regret buying this.

A broadside against a celebrity-obsessed media.......2007-06-12

This is wonderful stuff: toe-curling in the embarrassing situations it creates and wildly amusing as its targets get skewered. Postmodern is the word, I think. I honestly believe Trisha didn't know what was going on and this made it all the funnier.

In a nutshell, the celebrities (from B-to-Z list) think they are going on an unchallenging and unfunny panel game show only to be sent up relentlessly both to their faces and behind their backs. Lest Rob Brydon is accused of being unfair, it must be said that he sends himself up more savagely than he does anyone else, emerging almost as a Mr Hyde host, a nightmare of a smug, embittered, secretly insecure presenter. A bit like Noel Edmonds but obviously written with a sense of self-awareness.

My only complaint is that, as was the case occasionally with the Borat film, you are sometimes convinced that the celebrities are in on the joke in order to make it work. In certain scenes they simly HAVE to be, which makes you wonder whether on other occasions too they might be 'playing to the gallery' when they are not supposed to be aware of they are the target of a merciless send-up. Did they have an inkling of what was going on or any control over the final cut? I really hope they didn't but it's hard to be sure.

That aside, it's compulsive entertainment. Just pity the studio audience who must have had to sit through what was apparently one of the most dire panel games in years in order to make this programme possible!

A masterpiece of parody and hyperreality.......2007-05-25

The Annually Retentive of the title refers to a quiz panel show that we are led to believe is presented by comedy actor/writer Rob Brydon and on which several celebrities and comedians appear, just like Have I Got News For You and Never Mind The Buzzcocks (with some blatant references and spoof segments of such shows). The programme is a mix of scenes from the show (within a show) and "behind the scenes" sections of Brydon getting increasingly nervous and paranoid, and of the conversations and events surrounding the guests on the show before they go on.

The best way to describe what's going on in Annually Retentive is to compare it to Curb Your Enthusiasm, in which Larry David plays an over the top version of himself with lots of improvisation and only a vague direction for each episode to develop from. Annually Retentive is in a similar style - Brydon plays a caricatured (and nastier, more insecure) version of himself, with several of the celebrity guests on the show similarly parodying themselves exaggerating their media personas.

Annually Retentive is clever, well embedded in British TV/celebrity culture, and a superb study of the world of showbusiness and the frustrations and potential for fragility therein. Most of all though, it's just very funny.

The episode I particularly enjoyed is the one where Russell Brand appears on Annually Retentive and we see Brydon in his office moaning about Brand's shtick, saying how Brand will sit quietly and politely before bursting into an over the top and floor-holding soliloquy on some topic or other, which Brydon does an absolutely hilarious impression of. This particular scene has a great sting in the tale which, like the whole of the series, I don't want to spoil.

If you didn't catch it on TV then definitely check out the DVD. Even once watched though, like the Alan Partridge programmes, it's well worth owning a copy to watch with friends and introduce to newbies. Five stars.

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