Rowan Atkinson Live : DVD Review
December 7, 2009 by Sean Lynch
Filed under Comedy, DVD & Blu Ray, DVD Reviews
If you ain’t seen Rowan Atkinson Live, then you ain’t seen comedy – it’s as simple as that folks.
It is a well known fact that any self respecting comdian or comedy nerd must – by law – have seen the classic 1991 recording of Rowan Atkinson’s sketch comedy concert at least five times.
Whether that means viewings late night on Channel 7 (who went through a stage in the late 1990s where it aired it at least once a year), late night on Foxtel’ s Areana (back in the days when they still showed Saturday Night Live every night of the week… instead of Hollywood reality trash) or the more common “I borrowed the VHS from the local library… yes… they do lend out audio / visual… I know, untapped resource”.
Whatever your method… you should be able to recite this puppy word-for-word.
Shock DVD have done the world a massive favour, giving Rowan Atkinson Live a timely rerelease (by that I mean it was getting to a stage where it was almost impossible to find in stores on DVD… or VHS) unleashing some of the wry-witted comedians finest work (outside of Black Adder and Mr. Bean) on a new generation.
What makes Rowan Atkinson Live (filmed live before an enthusiastic audience in Boston in 1991) such an amazing feat is the fact that it is a one man sketch show.
We often take for granted how deceptively easy it is to do sketch within a group, able to work off other performers on the off chance a skit bombs bigger than a Ricky Gervais movie in America. Yes, Monty Python were amazing… but they had at least seven minds working overtime.
Atkinson (with the help of his long time stage partner Angus Deayton) manages to captivate the audience and completely suck you into the imaginary worlds here creates (on his lonesome) throughout the variety of sketch work, routines and characters compiled by Rowan over the last ten years.
If you haven’t seen it – do yourself a favour and grab yourself a copy while you can and before it goes out of circulation forever. A true comedy classic, if only because after all these year the jokes still hold up incredibly strong.
WATCH OUT FOR
There are so many classic moments, but as a Beatles fan, you simple can’t go past “A cucumber writer, an onion writer… a Paper-Back Writer… just a little j-yolk” along with that truly unique Atkinson word pronunciation.
WATCH OUT FOR | RATING: 4.5 / 5
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