John Cleese Comedy Collection / How To Irritate People, Romance With A Double Bass, Strange Case Of The End Of Civilization

From Monty Python through Fawlty Towers, John Cleese’s creativity, innovation and hilarity altered the world of sketch comedy and sitcoms forever. These three comic gems in The John Cleese Collection are essential viewing for connoisseurs of British Comedy. Starring John Cleese with Python members Michael Palin and Graham Chapman, and Fawlty Towers’ own Connie Booth. The set includes: How To Irritate People, The Strange Case of the End of Civilization and Romance with a Double Bass.

How To Irritate People: And now for something completely rare. This 1968 television special is essential for connoisseurs of British humor and, of course, Monty Python completists. A pre-Python John Cleese teams up with Michael Palin and Graham Chapman (with invaluable assistance from co-Fawlty Towers creator Connie Booth and Tim Brooke-Taylor) for sketches that serve as a master class in demonstrating insincerity, inefficiency, and all-around rude behavior "to help people become more neurotic." The tricky bit, Cleese teaches, "is to never push the unsuspecting victim too far. With skill and tact, we can keep tensions bottled up for weeks, months, eventually you may induce a nervous breakdown, or better still, actual damage to the brain cells." Cleese and company portray very irritating parents, moviegoers, waiters, and partygoers. Of special interest to Python fans will be an auto mechanic sketch that anticipates the classic "Dead Parrot" sketch, as well as the job interview sketch that later found its way into the Python repertoire.

Strange Case of the End of Civilization: John Cleese is hilarious as the descendant of Sherlock Holmes in this modern detective drama of international power politics and intrigue. Unlike his illustrious grandfather however, this Sherlock Holmes only succeeds in bungling every job he organizes. Also stars Arthur Lowe as the "bionic" grandson of Dr. Watson, Stratford Johns as the Commissioner of Police, and Connie Booth as Mrs. Hudson.

Romance with a Double Bass: John Cleese and Connie Booth star in this delightful tale of comic romance based on the short story by Anton Chekhov. On a hot summer's day a musician (Cleese) decides to skinny dip in the royal lake, not knowing that the princess (Booth) has done the same. A passing thief steals both their clothes, and their attempt to return to the castle proves to be a hilarious adventure.

Two of three are classics; video quality varies

Fans of John Cleese, or of British comedy in general, will enjoy this set, but should be aware of a couple of drawbacks.
"Romance with a Double Bass" is a great example of Cleese in classic comedic form. He is also in naked form for a significant portion of this 1974 short film, along with co-star Connie Booth. Amazon's product listing shows this collection as "Not Rated," but this film would get an R rating in the U.S. market. If the nudity - which is an integral part of the story - doesn't bother you, this is a wonderful interpretation of an Anton Chekov short story. However, the video quality is grainy.
"How to Irritate People" was shown on British TV in 1968 and is a collector's item for fans of Cleese and his Monty Python cohorts Michael Palin and Graham Chapman. Perhaps surprisingly, the video quality for this program is the best of the three, even though it is the oldest performance in the set.
"The Strange Case of the End of Civilization," a 1977 Sherlock Holmes spoof, is a bit disappointing, and not just because of inferior video quality. While it has its moments, much of the humor comes off as dumb rather than hilarious. It also has many references to 1970s TV shows about police detectives (Kojak, Columbo, McCloud, Hawaii Five-O, etc.) that would have been funny at the time but will be lost on audiences too young to remember these shows.
The set includes three DVDs in separate boxes, obviously a repackaging of previous releases. The content of all three would fit on one DVD.
Dedicated followers of Cleese's early work will want to have this set and may be willing to overlook its flaws. Anyone who is expecting digitally remastered video or elegant packaging, or who is offended by the nudity in one of the programs, will be disappointed. November 25, 2007

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