Product Details

• Actors: Julia Davis, Angus Deayton, Rebecca Front, Kevin Eldon, Michael Fenton Stevens
• Directors: Tony Dow
• Writers: Julia Davis, Mark Gatiss, Ruth Jones, Jane Roth
• Producers: Julia Davis, Alison MacPhail, Henry Normal
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: BBC Warner
• DVD Release Date: January 10, 2006
• Run Time: 171 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000BVM1SM
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #28,475 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Nighty Night - The Complete Series 1" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Some turn to scary movies for squirms, others to comedy. For the latter, the BBC's Nighty Night packs more squirms into a single episode than an entire season of The Office or Curb Your Enthusiasm. Combined. In other words, this blacker-than-black Britcom is so dark it could almost qualify as horror. Simply put, Jill Tyrell (writer/creator Julia Davis, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself) is the hairdresser from hell. She may lack the horns and the forked tail, but her approach to life couldn’t be more demonic. The vicious fun begins when preternaturally passive hubbie Terry (Kevin Eldon) is diagnosed with cancer--a malignant brain tumor, no less. After he's hustled off to the hospital for treatment, Jill tells everyone in town, including compassionate vicar Gordon Forks (Michael Fenton Stevens), that Terry has died and drops by the local dating agency to find a suitable replacement. Meanwhile, the ever-optimistic Cath Cole (Rebecca Front), who has MS, moves in next door. Upon meeting Cath's selfish spouse, Don (Angus Deayton, One Foot in the Grave), Jill decides he's the one. Her seduction plan begins by using Cath to get to him. When Don, who favors more pneumatic types--like the vicar's wife, Sue (Felicity Montagu)--proves resistant to her charms, Jill sets her sights on their teenaged son. Produced by Steve Coogan (24 Hour Party People), Nighty Night premiered in the US on the Oxygen Channel. Although there are only six episodes in the first series, the terrifying Mrs. Tyrell wreaks an admirable amount of havoc in each, culminating in one of the most hilariously squirm-inducing season finales in the Beeb's storied history. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 01/10/2006

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible Comedy, truly original and very dark., December 12, 2005

By	Review Lover "ReviewLover" (At a place...) - See all my reviews

Every so often a sitcom comes along that stays with you for a very long time after you've watched it, and "Nighty Night", the BBC's most recent sitcom-to-DVD conversion, is just such a thing.

Jill Tyrell (Julia Davis, the show's writer and creator, and a fabulous comedy actress, to boot), a beautician in a nondescript Northern town, is devastated to learn that her husband Terry (Kevin Eldon) has cancer. This happens to be the first scene of the first episode, and it's the last rational reaction you'll see for the next three hours. Jill, not one to rest on her laurels, decides a new man is the order of the day, and, before Terry is even ill, much less dead, deposits him in the hospital and heads off to find a man. Enter the unlucky Don (Angus Deayton), and his multiple sclerosis-afflicted wife Cathy (Rebecca Front), as Jill's new neighbours. Deciding that he's the man for her, and blindly ignoring the fact that Terry doesn't seem to be getting any sicker, Jill goes about driving a wedge between Don and Cathy, and keeping Terry's presence a secret from all and sundry.

As with "The League of Gentlemen", "Nighty Night" is a comedy that gets laughs from its situational absurdity. The main characters, with the exception of Jill, are portrayed beautifully as normal, rational people cast headlong into an unreasonable situation, but, thanks to the machinations of the ensemble of secondary characters (such as the gloriously funny Ruth Jones as Jill's long-suffering employee and friend Linda, and the wickedly irreverent Mark Gatiss as her erstwhile paramour Glenn Bulb), they soon find themselves descending to a level of abnormality that they're clearly not comfortable with. Happily, this makes for the best viewing, and "Nighty Night" is one of the best comedies to come out of Britain in recent years.

Julia Davis as Jill is monstrously cruel, totally self-centred and completely sociopathic, but, as with all good anti-heroes, she manages to generate such sympathy for the character that we are rooting for her to win, in the end. It's a brilliant portrayal of a character, that, in the hands of a lesser actress or with less care taken over the finer points of the script, could easily have sunk into one-dimensional nastiness. Happily, Davis has created in Jill Tyrell a sitcom heroine to rival - and beat - the likes of Basil Fawlty, Patsy Stone and Vicki Pollard at their own game.

I'm not going to give anything away, so I'm going to end my review here, suffice it so say that here are three of the best and funniest hours you could ever own on DVD. Extras - outtakes and almost twenty minutes of deleted scenes - are wonderful, and the audio/video quality is, as one would expect from the BBC, top-drawer.

Wholeheartedly recommended as an essential purchase.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deliciously Funny, May 15, 2006

By	Friskie (Toronto Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This is too good to be true. After purchasing this based on reviews alone my partner and I sat down to watch it not knowing what was about to take place. For the next three hours, we were absolutely shocked and entertained. This has got to be one of the most original shows ever to be created. Its got it all; comedy, drama and twisted minds. I have to admit I've taken a few lessons from Jill and her methods do work. Seriously though it was just plain amazing and I hope series two will be out soon. It is not for the easily offended but for those there is always the Brady bunch; the lamest thing ever to grace television. For the rest of us, well...Nighty Night. Highly recommended.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars one of the best Beeb shows in years, November 15, 2005

By	Byron Kolln (the corner where Broadway meets Hollywood) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

NIGHTY NIGHT is one of the most accomplished and subtle comedies to emerge from the BBC in recent years. Julia Davis wrote and starred in the series, playing monstrous Jill Tyrell, a self-centered egomaniac who discovers her long-suffering husband Terry (Kevin Eldon) has cancer. Despite Terry's quite hopeful prognosis, the first thing Jill does is sign up with a dating agency, then places Terry in a nursing home and tells everyone he has died...before setting her sights on her handsome new doctor neighbour Don (Angus Deayton). Jill's only obstacle lies with Cathy (Rebecca Front), Don's wheelchair-bound wife. Using every cunning trick and insult at her disposal, Jill will stop at nothing to claim Don for herself.

Julia Davis is fabulous playing Jill, a character with absolutely NO redeeming qualities. Patsy from "AbFab" looks like Mary Poppins pruning the rosebushes compared to Jill! The DVD contains all 6 episodes from the first series.

This isn't your usual "vanilla slice-Sunday afternoon" comedy from the Beeb...