A Bit Of Fry And Laurie: Season One - DVD Review

A tweedy parent berating his son's headmaster for "lies" about sexual intercourse's relationship to pregnancy. A holistic Information Desk ("Can you tell me... how to be happy?"). Scotch-slugging execs Peter and John ("The boardroom and the bedroom are just two sides of the same agenda")... Before the short one did pretend-American (House) and the tall one took to being professionally British in American movies (V For Vendetta), Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie dashed off four series of outrageously good BBC sketch comedy. A revisit to the first reveals the kind of breathless hit-rate unheard of with today's lazy, post-Fast Show, Little Britain catchphrase-'em-ups. With hindsight, Fry's fluffy-lovely solo blether seems self-parodying, but the mesh of styles clicks beautifully (Fry cerebral and wordy, Laurie sly and subversive). Hell, even the songs are good...

BEST BIT A Trilby-clad Laurie walks into a bookshop. "Do you have The West Indies - A Nation Of Cricketers," he asks, before adding, with feeling, "by Ted Cunterblast?"