Customer Reviews

Nighty Night - The Complete Series 1

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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...

"Nighty Night" is one of those programs that truly causes the jaw to drop, even for those of us who are accustomed to edgy comedy. It really keeps you guessing.

I am a huge fan of "Strangers With Candy", and when I initially got into that, I thought... "wow, what a bizarre and politically incorrect concoction." "Nighty Night" is politically incorrect in its own hilarious way, but it seems far more "out there" to me, probably because I was raised in the US. Buttons get pushed in "Nighty Night" that simply don't happen in American programming, even on the raciest of cable programs.

The writing is clever and the characters well developed. The acting is admirable, particularly on the part of Rebecca Front.

It's hard to say anything about this show without giving it away, and it's a bit pointless to speak about it in really vague terms. I'd recommend it without hesitation to anyone interested in quality, boundary-pushing comedy. If you're easily offended, and you think "Friends" is the best show ever, you probably won't enjoy "Nighty Night".

Julia Davis is a Goddess! This series is not only dark and humorous it touches into the deep psychic maliciousness of getting what one wants at all cost! I do not like the Curb Your Enthusiasm comparison because I loathe that show. I would compare Nighty Night with a touch of AB FAB, a sprinkle of Black Books, a hefty dose of The Office and a dash of Fawlty Towers. That's all that needs to be said! I have bought numerous Britcoms with no knowledge of what I would be getting; just taking a chance. This started 9 years ago and I have not been disappointed once!

There's not a lot I can add to what previous reviewers have said about this show. Suffice to say that Julia Davis' writing, and timing, are impeccable as ever, and if you haven't scene her deadpanning her way through her gig in The Alan Clarke Diaries as the secretary of the eponymous anti-hero (Played by John Hurt), then that's definitely worth a look, too.

I've got a bit of a "comedy exchange" thang going on with a mate in Australia, and mailing this over is my response to Summer Heights High, the latest "mockumentary" comedy by Chris Lilley on ABC over there. That one's the best comedy (anywhere) since Kath & Kim (although I personally think that a second series would be pushing it - without entirely new characters), and it's raised the bar so high, in terms of sick, cackle-inducing spectacle, that Nighty Night is the only UK-produced comedy I can think of that lives up to it. Little Britain? Forget it! Anyway, sketch shows are doomed to repetition.

That said, I wouldn't bother with Series 2 of Nighty Night again - which I caught when it was aired on BBC2 - as there are limits to which even I can stretch my disbelief, even if the soft-rock soundtrack was a hoot. Lord knows, nothing can shock me - maybe I'm even a little jaded - and Ruth Jones is great again as downtrodden Linda, but when Davis has her concealing a large trout in her nether regions for no particular reason other than a cheap laugh, it's time to give it the wide berth that recent John Waters films deservedly get these days. It's a bit like watching a precocious nephew or niece high on Asti Spumante at a wedding.

Pathos, uncomfortableness, engrossing, gross, realistic, surrealistic, offensive in every way and totally brilliant! If you REALLY want to see something that will change the way you look at television, use this as a primer. Then, if you can, try to see the UK DVD Chris Morris' BRASS EYE or JAM which will blow your beautiful mind.

If you like shows about really bad people (like Seinfeld) being shamelessly awful...and hysterically funny at the same time, you'll like this. The main character has no scruples, no shame, no limits. You'll be horrified and exhilarated by her wicked ways! Very, very funny.

It's dark. It will make you cringe. The things that the main character,Jill, says and does - well no person who is right in the head does or says things like that! And it's some of the most freakin' brilliant comedy I've ever seen. Love it!

Oh my You have to buy these 2 series i could not stop watching it so funny but wrong at the same time....i wish there had been further series to follow i would have been watching this forever.