Review of Black Books

Introduction

Black Books is the BAFTA award winning show from Channel 4 starring a great cast in Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey and Tamsin Greig.

Dylan plays the miserable, displeasurable and eccentric second-hand bookshop owner Bernard Black, who dislikes everyone, apart from Fran. Fran seems to be his one and only friend and runs the shop next door. She also has quite an influence over Bernard and they do love to share a bottle of wine at pretty much anytime of the day!

In waltzes Bill Bailey as Manny, looking to buy a copy of `The Little Book Of Calm`, and things start to snowball. I don`t want to give too much away to those of you that haven`t seen it, so I won`t say much more about the storylines. Needless to say that it`s a very creatively written series and I think well deserved of its awards.

Apparently Moran got his inspiration for the bookshop owner from a miserable guy in a Dublin bookshop. Nice. This has inspired the writing behind the show from Dylan and `Father Ted` regular, Graham Linehan.

Episodes: Cooking The Books; Manny`s First Day; Grapes Of Wrath; The Blackout; The Big Lockout; He`s Leaving Home.

Video

The anamorphic video transfer is very good. Seeing as most of the action takes place in a pokey little book shop, the colours used are somewhat muted but serve the programme well. It`s well transferred with clarity and detail and nice deep blacks too. I couldn`t notice any problems with the image at all. It`s nice to see the wide and clear frame.

Audio

Sound is presented with DD2.0 only. There`s little expectation for anything else since it`s a dialogue driven sitcom. The sound here is well balanced and works well enough.

Features

The trailer here is done very well. In fact I`m wondering if it`s from series 2 since none of the scenes are in series 1. If it is, then boy we`re in for a treat, it looks even better than the first series! The outtakes are quite funny once you`ve seen them the first time around, while the photo gallery has quite a few production stills and is good too. There are English subtitles here as well.

Finally there`s the cast commentary track of Bailey, Moran and Greig. They talk about the production, prompted by the scene playing on screen, and they are quite funny. They talk about all sorts of things related or not so I found this to be very entertaining. Bill Bailey with Tamsin and Dylan work comfortably together and I found myself laughing. All extras are anamorphically enhanced.

Conclusion

Black Books is a true sitcom amongst sitcoms. Written by Graham Linehan and Dylan Moran, Black Books is inventive, witty and captures the pathos so well. It`s also got good casting. Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey and Tamsin Grieg all work together so well that the storylines just flow and there are always gags which work. Moran acts drunk very well, while I must say a special mention for Bill Bailey`s hair. What can I say about Tamsin? She`s a little kooky and fits right in with this mad lot.

The quality here is in the writing as well as the casting and production design. All six episodes are written consistently well with a very good commentary track to back it up. From the opening episode with Manny (Bill Bailey) being introduced with the `Little Book Of Calm` right through to the final show where "He`s Leaving Home", after rowing with Bernard (Dylan Moran) I had a permanent grin. There`s a lot of wine being drunk in this show too and this just adds to the continued sense of madness.

Good anamorphic video transfer, good extras and an all round great DVD. You either get this series or you don`t. Fortunately for me, I absolutely loved it since the first episode. This weird and almost surreal sitcom has me in stitches and I`m pleased to say that I still laughed the second and third time around. I can`t wait for series two to start (with a cameo from Johnny Vegas).

If you`ve never seen this and are wondering what all the fuss is about, rent the disc or catch the new series on Channel 4 to see if it`s to your liking. Some of the humour won`t click with everyone, but those that get it - especially Father Ted fans - will find one of the wittiest and inventive British comedies to hit our screens in years. This is a must have disc.