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'A Bit Of Fry And Laurie - BBC Series 1-4 Complete Box Set [1989]' starring Stephen Fry and directed by Peter Orton. (StaEAN 5014138305727)

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are two phenomenally talented comedian/actors. I'd first seen them acting in various episodes of Blackadder. Then one Friday night early in 1989 I stumbled across their first full "Bit of Fry & Laurie" series. From that moment I've been a huge fan!

There's a classic send-up of the OTT drama "Howard's Way", in which a Uttoxeter health-club is run as though it were a huge multi-national! There's hilarious, deliberate bad acting when Tony Merchison (Laurie) works for the Secret Service and reports to his incredibly naïve boss "Control" (Fry). But my personal favourites are the "one-off" sketches; Mr. Nipple is embarrassed about his surname so calls himself "Mr..." then drops a stapler on the table. Gelliant Gutfright tells us the spooky tale of "Pat Ferrick and his red hat". You'll find clever, original dialogue popping up in a Head-teacher's office, in restaurants, on airfields, in courtrooms, at baptismal fonts, around shopping malls and at a myriad of other locations. There's also convincing impersonations of David Coleman, Richard Whitely, Jonathan Ross, Robert Robinson, Henry Kelly and many others...

This tastefully presented boxed-set also contains some bonus material, such as the 1987 "Pilot" plus the 1982 "Cambridge Footlights Review", which includes Tony Slattery and the exceptionally talented Emma Thompson (Hugh Laurie's girlfriend at the time).

I agree with the previous reviews. This box set is a must have.
I've discovered Hugh Laurie only in 2007 (yes, I know....) and saw those sketches in a place you know. If I had never seen the sketches on this place I wouldn't have known they existed.
It's a pleasure to have them all. I just have a complaint : there's no booklet with the titles of the sketches, the titles of the songs (once again, there's a place where you can find them...).
As I'm french, I appreciate the english subtitles.
There's another extra : The Cambridge Footlights review (1982) on disc 2.

I'm generally a fan of both of the stars of this series, having watched much of their work and read most of their books. This was a reasonably successful TV comedy sketch show which I remembered as having some funny moments but being rather mannered and self-indulgent. Well, I was right - but it is generaly quite entertaining, and they do their best to break a lot of the clichés of comedy sketches.
It's not brilliant and some of it is repetitive, such as the end-of-show cocktail, but if you like the two actors, you'll probably find quite a lot to enjoy here.

I'd already purchased the first three when this came out, but I got it anyway. There are five discs for four series, with series four comprising two discs, but really, the only thing I can see different is the box; there are no bonuses, unless you count the box.

Series one and two flow into each other quite well with recurring characters such as the yelling promoters of Utoxeter (Daaaaamn!!!) and Tony and Control of MI5, but it seems Fry and Laurie had not expected to continue on to three and four, and so came up with conclusions for many of their regular sketches. Holding this thought, series three has a very different air. For instance, there are more musical segments (like my favorite "Kickin' Ass"), and Mr Music playing out each episode while Stephen Fry mixed a strange (often frightening) concoction. I thought they had found their groove in this series... Only to lose it in series four.

Word is that the series was moved to BBC1, and Fry and Laurie lost much of their creative freedoms. For example, they now had guest stars, such as Caroline Quentin (Men Behaving Badly) and Robert Daws (Jeeves and Wooster), who didn't really play any vital roles. Hugh Laurie did a musical segment in each episode, all of which were wonderful and helped the series like a crutch. While series four was awkward, it still had its moments (usually having nothing to do with the guest stars). Why seven episodes had to be broken into two discs, I don't know.

While series one and two were united by recurring characters, series three and four were connected by Mr Music. But what made this programme "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" (besides Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, duh) were the vox pops between sketches.

This is definitely a must-have for fans of Fry and Laurie.