Black Books: Series 3 DVD Review:

Follow the adventures of Fran (Grieg), Bernard (Moran) and Manny (Bailey) as they go through the trails and tribulations of life while trying to sell books in Bernard’s Black Books store…

Manny Come Home

Fran returns from holiday to find that Manny has resigned and Bernard is living amid a pile of rubbish, rotting food and dead badgers.

Elephants and Hens

It is International Children's Book Week, and Bernard and Manny decide to write their own kids' classic and retire on the proceeds. Fran is off on a hen weekend, but still finds a way to fall out with Bernard and Manny.

Moo-ma and Moo-pa

Manny's parents come to stay, but Bernard cannot wait for them to leave and Fran is unhappy about pretending to be Manny's girlfriend to corroborate his letters home.

A Little Flutter

Manny places a bet on the Grand National for Bernard who immediately becomes addicted to the thrill of gambling having previously expressed no interest. But his losses mount, and he starts borrowing gambling funds from increasingly scary people.

The Travel Writer

Manny organises a travel-writing festival and invites a charming explorer to talk about his adventures. Fran soon falls for his twinkling eyes and lavish hair, leaving Manny ragingly jealous. Meanwhile, Bernard hires an assassin to solve a financial problem with his neighbour.

The Party

On Friday night, Manny and Fran are determined to go out for once, but Bernard is determined to stay at home, get drunk and ignore them.

Returning for a third series, cult British comedy Black Books continues to mix the surreal with the hilarious.

It extremely rare that a comedy series stays on top of its game but Black Books is an example of how a show can set a standard and then excel past it. Series three moves the show on, as we already know the characters it is the situations we find them in that creates the biggest laughs. Fran, Manny and Bernard feel like friends who you would talk about as they live their lives in the bookshop getting into the most hysterical scrapes.

Series three is filled with classic moments and even more memorable episodes. Opening with a guest appearance from Spaced and Shaun of the Dead star Simon Pegg, ‘Manny come Home’ picks up from the last episode of the last series with Fran returning from holiday to find Bernard living in a tip and that Manny has resigned and got a job in the rival bookstore next door. The episode really gets the season going with a classic episode. As well as Moran, Grieg and Bailey easing effortlessly back into their roles, Simon Pegg almost steals the show as the obsessive manager of Goliath Books who wants to mould Manny into the perfect employee.

The series continues to gather pace with ‘Elephants and Hens’, in which Manny and Bernard write a children’s book with extremely funny results. After that we meet Manny’s parents, played brilliantly by comedic legends Sam Kelly and Annette Crosbie, in ‘Moo-ma and Moo-pa’. This is a chance for Bill Bailey to shine as we see the reaction to the news that his Mum and Dad are coming to stay. Priceless.

Dylan Moran has his time in the spotlight in ‘A Little Flutter’ when Bernard gets addicted to gambling and finds himself sharked by con artist. Green Wing’s Julian Rhind-Tutt guest stars in the hilarious ‘The Travel Writer’, as Manny and Fran become obsessed with his character, explorer Jason Hamilton. Of course Bernard can’t see what all the fuss is about until he actually meets the man.

The series ends on a high with “The Party”, as all three characters get their time in the limelight. This is a great ensemble episode and a fantastic way to finish another classic series with you begging for more.

Black Books is one of the best British comedies to come along is a very long time. Its mixture of surreal humour, classic observation comedy and downright farce showcase what British comedy is all about. Fran, Bernard and Manny are classic comedy characters in the making and this third series does even more to cement this.

Season Star Rating = * * * * *

PICTURE & SOUND

Presented in Widescreen 16:9 Anamorphic with a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack, the transfer is very good. The picture quality is sharp throughout making you realise that the programme is so obviously filmed on a sound stage. The sound quality is good for a stereo track. The dialogue is the main focus of the track, as you’d want from a comedy series.

BONUS FEATURES

Outtakes (13.20 mins)

Black Books is filmed before a live studio audience and this set of gaffs, goofs and forgetting lines is made all the more funny as the actors play off their captivated watchers. Here we see Tamsin struggling to smoke, Simon Pegg committing numerous gaffs and the entire cast continually cracking up.

Deleted Scenes (21.09 mins)

Twenty deleted scenes from all of episodes from series three. Without a commentary or an introduction, we don’t know why some of these very funny moments where removed from this runoff the series.

Bernard’s Letters (2.33 mins)

Listen to Bernard reading from his rejection letters from publishers and then hear his hilarious response.

Photo Gallery
A montage of behind the scenes shots from series three

OVERALL

This classic British comedy series is given a good DVD treatment by Channel 4 but you can’t help thinking it could have been so much better. The lack of a making of… or documentary to accompany the disc and the absence of commentary tracks for the episodes make this a wasted opportunity to make Black Books a classic DVD as well as a classic series. The presentations of the episodes are very good however and the extras that you do get are fun but fans will end up just gagging more.

DVD Star Rating = * * *

Jamie Kelwick

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