Not The Nine O'Clock News - The Best Of Not The Nine O'Clock News - Vol. 1 - Region 2 DVD

Atkinson's stuff is among the best here, be it as a hideous young Tory, or as Gerald the Gorilla, now civilised to a fault by the captor who caught him in the wild. ("Wild? I was livid!") The much-repeated bit of him walking into a tree, however, doesn't work as he clearly anticipates the collision. While the musical elements look inevitably dated and a lengthy sketch on darts players boozing reaches the "Yeah, we get the point" mark long before it reaches its end, it's surprising how topical much of this material remains decades on--a sketch involving an agonising gay vicar springs to mind--while time hasn't eroded the quality of much of the writing.

On the DVD: Not the Nine O'Clock News on disc comes with no extra features. --David Stubbs