Have a laugh when you 'A'int Bothered'. (The Catherine Tate Show - Series 1 (DVD))

Member Name: Duty_Free_Me

Product:	The Catherine Tate Show - Series 1 (DVD)
Date:	14/11/06 (1132 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of laughs

Disadvantages: only a few extras

In my opinion, Catherine Tate is one of the funniest women on our screens today.
Not only is she diverse enough to play many different characters, all of which extremely funny, she also writes her own material.

So who is she?

Catherine Tate graduated from the Central School of Speech and Drama, and the Royal National Theatre. She then spent a year with the Royal Shakespeare Company before being noticed as a stand-up comic.
She appeared in the sketch show 'Barking' on channel 4, and then later appearing with Peter Kay and Harry Hill in their own shows. The big turn around for Catherine was when she became a part of Lee Mack's Perrier-nominated New Brits show at Edinburgh in 2000. After going down a storm she returned to the festival with her own one-woman show the next year.
Her show was hugely popular and now we have it for our viewing pleasure airing on the BBC, The Catherine Tate Show.

I recently brought the first series of her self titled show on DVD which has 6 half hour long episodes, I was so addicted and humorously entertained after the first episode I watched the next 5 episodes in continuance. Needless to say, I stayed amused throughout the feature length.

The episodes within the Catherine Tate show is set out like a series of brief comic sketches with more than several recurring characters, much like the Little Britain series. Every character is very different and all of them very amusing.

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The Characters
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Lauren the Teenager-

Her portrayal of this character made the phrase 'Am I bothered?' very much her own. She is a comprehensive school student with a bad attitude and no respect for authority figures such as train inspectors and teachers, needless to see her friends. If she doesn't agree with, or does not like what you say, she will rapidly fire you with repeated one liners like 'are you disrespecting me?', 'are you disrespecting my family'?, 'are you calling my dad a wino?', until the point her fellow characters crack under the pressure.
Lauren is probably one of the most popular characters Tate plays, especially amongst the younger audience. A very annoying, common as muck character who is constantly in your face but extremely funny.
Her character shares a lot of resemblance to the famous Vikki Pollard from the Little Britain Series.


The foul-mouthed Nan, Miss Taylor-

One of my favourite characters from series one of the show. This sketch always has a young, handsome well-mannered grandson come to visit his rude, opinionated, manipulative foul-mouthed Grandmother.
She is always overjoyed when her grandson firsts steps into her home to visit her, but give it a few minutes and she will begin to rant on about her neighbours, home help workers, or her family. The words that flow from the 'old dears' mouth are far from pleasant, but oh so funny.


The Office Workers-

These are sketches involving Catherine Tate playing the 'Just Guess Lady'.
She sits next to her co-worker, who is always rather keen to get on with her work, however Tate frequently disturbs her by asking the co worker to take a wild guess at her lifestyle, weight, distances and more. Even though the co workers is more than reluctant to go along with her game, Tate will not shut up until she has guessed the answer. However the guess is hardly ever the right one which results in Tate's character getting insulted and offensive.


Paul and Sam 'The overly Happy Couple'

Although these are my least favourite characters and sketch, the rest of my family find them hilarious. Paul and Sam, an Essex couple, find every day situations surprisingly hilarious, and amuse each other with their tales of their day. The simplest things that many would not find funny, they do, and continue to laugh at each other in a very fake tone.


Bernie the Irish Nurse-

In these sketches Tate plays an Irish nurse who is incompetent at any task given. She always seems like she is going to be sacked any second by her superior who is having to continuously give her written warnings. She also gets rather randy and seems to have sex on the mind all the time.



The over-aged majorette, Bunty Carmichael-

This time her character has been a majorette since the age of six years old. Now 31 years old the owner of the majorette club want her to move on, as most majorettes leave in their late teen years. Bunty however will not take the hint, and the owner drops her from the team. Obsessed with the children's majorette club, she persists to get back in the team, resulting in the owner being summoned to a local pub to pursued Bunty to move on with her life and forget about the majorettes, not any easy task!



Elaine Figgis, the "Death Row Wife"-

Tate plays Elaine Figgis in these sketches, a women who is about to set off on a journey to Texas to marry a serial killer to whom she has never met in person. Set out like a documentary style sketch, Elaine tells the interviewer the reason why she loves the cannibal murderer.


Margaret, the frightened women-

These are very simple funny sketches of Tate playing a middle-aged women called Margaret who is frightened of her own shadow. She screams at almost anything, including toast which has just pinged from the toaster, or when a phone goes off. It is one of the simpler sketches, but works very well and still very humorous.


The Detective-

Tate plays a detective with bizarre theories on murders. Much like a Mulder and Scully setting from X-Files, the detective is joined buy her assistant Whittikar, whose never sure where her theories are going.


The Help Desk Worker-

A women who works on the help desk of a large shopping centre, who is useless at giving help to customers. She most of the time misunderstands them and is never of any help at all.

New Parents Karen and Ben-

Again, one of my favourite sketches involving two seemingly relaxed parents who will do anything to keep there new born baby sleeping, including not leaving the car for a birthday dinner party in case doors slam. They mostly argue with each other until their baby wakes, and they both come together to sing the baby asleep again.
This sketch is very funny, especially when the parents argue.


The Airhead-

A brief sketch which only occurs a few times involving an American that talks really fast and ends it on a sour note.

The Upper-Class Women-

Unfortunately this is another sketch I do not find extremely funny. Tate plays a posh English women, who is always accompanied by her two children, who act just like her. She goes into panic at the simplest of situations, like running out of something. Comical for some, but not for me.


As the episodes go on you will also encounter some other brief characters like the 'backhander women' who advises people to lash out with a swift backhand to the face, also the 'Last Hit Women' who seems overly obsessed with the school game 'tag' and must have the last hit. The Drunk Estate agent who calls a potential buyer for the house she is trying to sell a homosexual, and Jill the Tragic Clown who has suffered a terrible accident and it shows in her clown training.


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My Opinion Of The Series and DVD
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Most of the sketches are hilarious, with only a small few in which I did not find very entertaining, although the rest of my family did, which brings to the point that I think the show offers a laugh for everyone in one way or another.
Catherine Tate is unquestionably a comic genius and a breath of fresh air to the comedy world.
I think the series really challenges some of the better known comedy sketch shows like Little Britain, and although a fan of Little Britain too, I find Catherine Tate's sketches funnier.
The whole series is well written, and well performed. The sketches don't always 'go' anywhere in terms of consistent plot and there is no big set-up for each bit, however, some sketches are broken up to give you a sense of continuity.
The program does have strong language at times, at it is certificated as 15 here in the UK. The feature length will run on for 189 minutes approx.
You might also be interested to know that this series has one several awards including Best Comedy for the BANFF Rockie Awards 2004, and also Catherine Tate received best newcomer from the British Comedy Awards 2004.
I payed £9.99 at my local video shop, but you may find it online for much cheaper on sites like Amazon.

The DVD only has limited extras but nevertheless they are good ones. The first extra feature is the 2005 Comic Relief Appearance, which was voted the funniest moment of 2005 by Heat magazine. Catherine Tate, dressed as her mouthy character Lauren, was participating as part of a panel that could ask the boy band known as McFly a series of questions. In Laurens rude and disrespectful way she makes it clear she was not 'Mc-Bothered' about McFly! Completely hilarious!

The second extra you get is a behind the scenes interview with Catherine Tate on how her characters came about. This is most interesting, especially as you come to realise that she has in fact based her characters on people she knows. You will also see the make-up artists get her ready for each character role. The transformation from her face to that of her character Miss Taylor's (Nan's) face is a joy to view.



To sum up, this is a very worthwhile purchase for anyone wanting a good laugh, and a must for Catherine Tate fans. Very enjoyable viewing, so much so, I can't wait to now purchase series 2.

Thanks for reading, Dempsey

Summary: Funniest women on our screens today