Am I bovvered about this DVD?! (The Catherine Tate Show - Series 1 (DVD))

Member Name: kellya1

Product:	The Catherine Tate Show - Series 1 (DVD)
Date:	27/11/05 (6408 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great comedy!

Disadvantages: Not enough extras

I'm a huge fan of sketch shows, ranging from The Two Ronnie's to Little Britain. Somehow, The Catherine Tate show has gone seemingly unnoticed, and criticised by some. Maybe this is due to the success of Little Britain, and other strong comedy series around. I managed to bypass the first series of the Catherine Tate Show until I saw an 'Am I bovered sketch' during Comic Relief last year. After watching the second series, I became instantly hooked! I have not laughed so much since I saw the 'fork handles' sketch as a young girl.

Catherine Tate began her career studying acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama. After graduating, she spent a year with the Royal Shakespeare Company before turning to stand up comedy. She then made the crossover to television with appearances in the Channel 4 sketch show Barking, Tate Peter Kay Thing, and The Harry Hill Show before becoming part of Lee Mack's Perrier-nominated New Bits show at Edinburgh in 2000. Inevitably, she was spotted by a casting director at the festival the following year, and was offered the role of Angela in Wild West. This series success led to the commissioning of The Catherine Tate Show.

The Catherine Tate show is a self-titled character based sketch show, now in its second series on BBC 2. The star of the show is not necessarily a character, or a catchphrase but Tate herself. She has a tremendous ability of making her characters three-dimensional. By building up the character's role and situation, creating tension and expectation, and using Tate's exceptional skills, you are lured into the sketch, finding yourself not only laughing, but believing Tate IS the character.
The DVD

As I had not seen the first series, I could not wait to get my hands on the DVD as I was beginning to suffer withdrawal symptoms on Thursday evenings. I had seen it advertised in various newspapers, and I ordered my copy through Play.com for £12.99. Although I roared with laughter, I must say I was disappointed with some aspects of the DVD…

Characters
The characters from Series 1 are extremely varied, ranging from a lonely woman who marries a serial killer on death row, to a foul-mouthed granny. The majority of characters only appear in one sketch throughout the series, and many are nameless, so without spoiling too much, I will mention the reoccurring characters;

Mrs Taylor - AKA Nan
My favourite character in the series! Tate plays a cockney Nan whose grandson pays regular visits. She begins by being very grateful for her grandson coming over, and then suddenly she will turn into a foul-mouthed racist, accusing her home help of stealing clothes, money and food, or claiming that her neighbours are dead! The reason she is so popular is that everyone knows an elderly person with the same mannerisms, and can relate to the character. However, the reason I find myself liking the character, is that Tate makes the sketch so believable with the excellent make up, clothes, and 'the voice'. As she explains in the interview, the voice began on stage during her stand up routine after she copied it from an un-revealed source, and was well received; she decided to put it in the sketch show. I am so glad she did!

Lauren
The most famous character associated with the Catherine Tate show, Lauren is the modern-day pupil with suffering from a little attitude problem. She is best known for the catchphrase 'Am I bovvered'. I was introduced to Lauren through Comic Relief last year in the now classic 'McFly interview', and fell about laughing. I thought the phrase 'Am I McBothered' was genius!

The office workers
Tate appears as a young blonde obnoxious office worker who likes to ask her colleague, who sits next to Tate to guess various happenings in her life. 'Guess how long it took me to get to Cornwall' I don't know' replies her colleague. 'Just guess!' she says, with a sarcastic tone in her voice. This goes on until a guess is made and is nowhere near the mark, and Tate gets agitated and makes rude comments. A good sketch, not roll-about-the-floor-with-laughter comedy however.

Bernie the nurse
An over sexed Irish nurse who is not blessed with good looks. She is rubbish at her job, likes a night out on town, and is constantly chatting up any male with a pulse that walks her way. The rejections she receives creates sympathy for Bernie, however, when she tells a worried relative that she mistakenly told him his mum had died, that sympathy somewhat disappears!

Paul and Sam A happily married Essex couple, who find mundane situations surprisingly hilarious. I love these characters! Tate recently ackowledged in an interview that these characters are based on two friends that still have no idea the sketch is about them!

Bunty
A 32 year old majorette who insists on being allowed to perform in a children's majorettes team, as there is no age limit. She harasses the team and the coach when they chuck her out.
The detective - Tate plays a detective who upon finding headless bodies, comes up with impossible theories at the crime scene. "They were alive after they had been decapitated". She accuses her junior assistant Whittaker of not being experienced enough to understand her conclusions.

Elaine Figgis
Tate plays a woman who appears in a documentary, following her engagement and eventual marriage to a serial killer on death row in the US. She's not the brightest of sparks, bless!

Margaret
A woman who screams at the simplest of everyday situations, such as when the phone rings. Tate has confessed to this character being based on her own mother!

The new parents
A couple who have just been blessed with a newborn baby who doesn't stop crying. When the baby is asleep, they do anything to stop the baby waking up, including refusing to leave their car to attend a birthday dinner. The dinner takes place in the car.

The last hit woman
Tate plays a businesswoman who starts a game of 'it' at the office, during important meetings. When a colleague 'last hit''s her back, she chases him to the road where he has a car accident…Needless to say the game continues!

The upper class mother
A woman who goes panics if her husband hasn't got the 'correct' cheese for her children's picnic, or if the nanny can't come over.

Artwork
The cover is quite plain, a light green background with Tate as 4 of the most well known characters, Lauren, Mrs Taylor, Sam and Elaine Figgis. It shows just how diverse Tate's characters are!

Extra Features
What is really lacking with this DVD is the extra features. Apart from the scene selection (which is standard for most DVD's) there are only 2 additional extras; an interview with Catherine Tate by the director of the show, and the Comic Relief sketch featuring Lauren asking McFly questions in a group interview. Lauren decided to ask, "Why are you so rubbish?" When challenged by host Simon Amstell (from C4 Popworld) Lauren promptly replies "Am I bothered?" and "Are you calling me stupid?" One of my favourite lines is, "Are you gutted that Charlie left?" (Meaning Charlie from Busted)

The interview is only 15-20 minutes in length, while the comic relief sketch is 5 minutes. Although the interview is a great insight into how some of the characters were born, it is not in-depth, and looks like it was just thrown together while Tate puts on her make-up for the filming of the show. I would love to see some outtakes, interviews with other cast members, director, etc, clips of Catherine Tate doing stand up. Hopefully this will be on the series 2 DVD somewhere down the line!

To Sum up…
This series may not be as good as the second, but it is hilarious nonetheless, packed full of excellent performances and fabulous characters. It is not hard to see why critics are labeling Tate as one of the most exciting female comics around. However, the extra features is lacking significantly and therefore I am only giving this DVD 3*. The second series as shown on TV recently is fab, so bring on the DVD!!

Release Date: August 22, 2005
Classification: 15
Starring: Catherine Tate, et al.

Edition Details:
• Region 2 encoding
• PAL
Cost: £12.99 from Play.com or £13.99 from Virgin

Summary: An excellent DVD full of comedy, however, it is lacking in the special features department