Puerile, Childish, Ultra-Violent and yet strangely charming (Bottom)

Member Name: huggy2009

Product:	Bottom
Date:	06/06/09 (7 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The chemistry between the lead actors

Disadvantages: Its childish, puerile, poorly written and cheap

Bottom is one of those comedies you either love or hate, its shallow, hateful and yet visually very funny.

The show was written and starred Mayall and Edmondson and won awards for the BBC, it had 3 series in total and loads of sellout tours of the UK.

The comedy basically follows the failed attempts at living of Richie (Rick Mayall) and Eddie (Ade Edmondson), both are unemployed, crazed, perverted losers, whose only pleasure in life seems to be in making each other unhappy, they are like the Odd Couple on crack. They spend their time thinking up crackpot ideas or alternatively simply beating each other up.

Richie - Richie is a seedy voyeur a cowardly little weasle with greasy hair and a penchant for smarm. He is a pervert and has never kissed a girl let alone anything more in his life, he is the real star of the piece, going from smarmy reverence to bullying in a moment.

Eddie - Eddie Hitler is a loser too, a waster who gambles his money, gets drunk and wastes cash on pornography, unlike Richie he at least has a cache of friends albeit, loser friends with no redeeming features.

It has been said by Mayall that Bottom could be considered as a slightly twisted cousin to the stageplay 'Waiting for Godot', in some ways this is true both touch on the themes of life, its irrelevance and our own personal searches for meaning and structure. Bottom is Waiting for Godot to the nth degree its deranged, the guys idea of searching for meaning is to bang each other over the head with saucepans.

The plots are ridiculous, from plots about buying porn to getting locked on the roof of their flat, from pretending to be on their honeymoon to filming riots, they are not incredibly sharp, the writing too is puerile and yet strangely charming. The stories were never the key here, it was all about the chemistry between the two leads and there is loads, the guys play their parts well, absolutely overplaying them to perfection, the violence is an integral part of the show and is cartoonish and over the top, the show was never subtle and some would say if you don't like violent slapstick its not at all funny, it is funny but it is a one trick pony and the BBC decided this was the case by not pursuing a fourth series.

Summary: Stupid Fun