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Special Features
- Bio of author Tom Sharpe
- Cast filmographies
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Porterhouse Blue begins as an insular lampoon of stuffy British academia but rapidly escalates to dizzyingly absurd--even grotesque--heights of satire. Porterhouse College (a fictional part of Cambridge University) has lost another Master to a Porterhouse Blue, a stroke induced by the college's legendary excess in food and drink. But the newly appointed Master, Sir Godber Evans (Ian Richardson, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), is a former Porterhouse student with a dim view of its traditions. Egged on by his progressive wife, Evans proposes to encourage scholarship, admit women, put contraceptive vending machines in the bathrooms, and eliminate the large staff of college servants--which incurs the wrath of the college's head porter, Skullion (David Jason, A Touch of Frost). As Skullion maneuvers to foil Evans' plans, a student named Zipser (John Sessions, Gormenghast) wrestles with his lust for his housekeeper, a passion with explosive results. Over the course of four hour-long episodes, the college's meager dignity is destroyed by media scandal, a masquerade orgy, and a courtyard swarming with gas-filled prophylactics. The excellent performances rise from a low boil to a furious pitch of indignation, desperation, and revenge. Anglophiles will enjoy the freewheeling bite of the humor, which compares with Evelyn Waugh's caustic wit. The unusual soundtrack, by a-cappella group the Flying Pickets, adds to the miniseries' unique flavor. --Bret Fetzer
Product Description
A hilarious romp through the hallowed halls of British academia
For more than 500 years, Porterhouse College has cherished tradition above all else. Unfortunately, its traditions mostly involve decadent banquets, drunkenness, and undistinguished scholarship. Enter Sir Godber Evans (Ian Richardson, Bleak House, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), a new master hell-bent on reform. Of course, the dinosaurs on the faculty resist him at every turn. But Head Porter Skullion (David Jason, A Touch of Frost) emerges as Sir Godber’s most formidable foe -- a self-appointed guardian of Porterhouse’s most hallowed traditions, with plenty of tricks up his tweedy sleeve.
Based on Tom Sharpe’s uproarious bestseller, Porterhouse Blue crackles with dry wit and bristles with satirical barbs. It punctures British pomposity in Oxbridge and beyond, taking dead aim at dotty dons, stodgy aristocrats, hypocritical reformers, and TV reporters. Winner of an International Emmy® and two BAFTA Awards (including David Jason’s for Best Actor), Porterhouse Blue rewards viewing after viewing with fresh laughter.
DVD FEATURES INCLUDE bio of author Tom Sharpe and cast filmographies.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A funny and merciless satire on British class snobbery and Oxbridge traditions,
By
This review is from: Porterhouse Blue (DVD)
The master has just died...of a Porterhouse Blue. That is, of a stroke brought on by overindulgence. Long tradition insists that the masters of Porterhouse College name their successors, and that is to be the last man named by a dying master. Porterhouse, a very traditional college in the Cambridge mode of English privileged education, depends on all of its complacent traditions. "You know my view," says the Dean of Porterhouse, "if a little learning is a dangerous thing, just think what harm a lot of it can do." The college is so traditional, in fact, that its rights and privileges haven't changed in centuries. The deans and tutors seem just as ancient. However, the dying master did not name a successor. With no successor, the Prime Minister steps in and chooses a new one...Sir Godber Evans (Ian Richardson), a weak but sly fox of a politician with a wife, Lady Mary (Barbara Jeffords), who is as strong-willed and zealous as an executioner's axe. Sir Godber, however, is about to come up against two bastions of self-satisfied tradition, the Dean (Paul Rogers) and the Senior Tutor (John Woodnutt). But not even in Sir Godber's worst dreamings could he envisage the real defender of Porterhouse tradition...Skullion (David Jason), the head porter, a man who has been a fixture at Porterhouse for 45 years, who knows all the secrets and who keeps lists. Skullion is not a man to be trifled with.
Sir Godber and Lady Mary are determined to haul Porterhouse into the Twentieth Century. Finding that the college is in debt by a million pounds -- it maintains a fine cellar and chef for the High Table -- doesn't seem upsetting to those who have the long view. Take the college Feast, a magnificent affair with cooked, stuffed swans with all their feathers replaced, with the great ox cooked on a spit, whose dripping skeleton is festively paraded about the dining hall to the cheers of all. "Don't you find this a little indulgent? Particularly in the present economic circumstances." says Sir Godber. "Oh, we never bother with 'present economic circumstances'." says the Dean. Chimes in the Senior Tutor, "We find that they tend to go away after fifty years or so." As Sir Godber and his wife set out to bring women into the college, bring financial order to the budget and bring contraceptive vending machines to the student restrooms, The Dean, the Senior Tutor and the other Fellows plot...and Skullion is just about to have a fit. He knows a gentleman when he sees one, and Sir Godber is not doing what a gentlemen does. He embarks on a campaign to see that Porterhouse traditions will be protected and that he'll be able to keep his job. In this vicious, amusing satire on class snobbery and England's Oxbridge ways, no one is spared and a few even die. In fact, one of the funniest turns of the knife depends at the conclusion on another episode of a Porterhouse Blue. The program was adapted from the novel by Tom Sharpe, a British author who specializes in novels which skewer class pretensions. If you like Evelyn Waugh, you'll probably find Porterhouse Blue a rip. David Jason and Ian Richardson are in great form. And only Britain could come up with such a collection of fine actors able to play the aging protectors of tradition and fine wines. I remember years ago seeing Our Man in Havana and being impressed by Paul Rogers, a man I'd never heard of before, playing a key role amidst the star power of Alec Guinness, Ernie Kovacs, Noel Coward and Ralph Richardson. At 70, Rogers plays the Dean of Porterhouse with great, self-serving style and sly humor. He is one of the many actors in Porterhouse Blue who are, as they say, spot on. The DVD until now has been available only as a Region Two release. It was originally broadcast on British television in four episodes. There are no extras. The quality of the DVD of the Region Two transfer is not bad, about what you'd expect from a good VHS tape. I expect the Region One version to be the same.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"We have the permission of Her Majesty ... not the current monarch, the first Queen Elizabeth.",
By
This review is from: Porterhouse Blue (DVD)
This is vintage British snob comedy with a distinctly blackish tinge.
It is far from faultless. The whole subplot involving Zipster (no gentleman as Porterhouse College interprets the term, but a poor, bedeviled scholarly swot condemned to write a thesis on the impact of pumpernickel on medieval Westphalia) is silliness of a woefully lower standard than that of the main plotline with its contentedly corrupt and sleepily self-indulgent Cambridge college suffering at the hands of a reformist-minded new Master. Nevertheless, the actors--icily smarmy Ian Richardson, doggedly determined David Jason, ultra-conservative über-alumnus Charles Grey and a corps of utterly dotty college dons--are given opportunity after opportunity to delight. Just listen to the deaf-as-a-post college chaplain as he genially explains how the college started out as a brothel and has carefully maintained its traditions for five hundred years. This four-part TV series from the late 1980s has finally made it across the Atlantic for the enjoyment of anyone with a taste for echt-British humour. Four stars.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A funny and merciless satire on British class snobbery and Oxbridge traditions,
By
This review is from: Porterhouse Blue [NON-U.S.A. FORMAT: PAL Region 2 U.K. Import] (DVD)
The master has just died...of a Porterhouse Blue. That is, of a stroke brought on by overindulgence. Long tradition insists that the masters of Porterhouse College name their successors, and that is to be the last man named by a dying master. Porterhouse, a very traditional college in the Cambridge mode of English privileged education, depends on all of its complacent traditions. "You know my view," says the Dean of Porterhouse, "if a little learning is a dangerous thing, just think what harm a lot of it can do." The college is so traditional, in fact, that its rights and privileges haven't changed in centuries. The deans and tutors seem just as ancient. However, the dying master did not name a successor. With no successor, the Prime Minister steps in and chooses a new one...Sir Godber Evans (Ian Richardson), a weak but sly fox of a politician with a wife, Lady Mary (Barbara Jeffords), who is as strong-willed and zealous as an executioner's axe. Sir Godber, however, is about to come up against two bastions of self-satisfied tradition, the Dean (Paul Rogers) and the Senior Tutor (John Woodnutt). But not even in Sir Godber's worst dreamings could he envisage the real defender of Porterhouse tradition...Skullion (David Jason), the head porter, a man who has been a fixture at Porterhouse for 45 years, who knows all the secrets and who keeps lists. Skullion is not a man to be trifled with.
Sir Godber and Lady Mary are determined to haul Porterhouse into the Twentieth Century. Finding that the college is in debt by a million pounds -- it maintains a fine cellar and chef for the High Table -- doesn't seem upsetting to those who have the long view. Take the college Feast, a magnificent affair with cooked, stuffed swans with all their feathers replaced, with the great ox cooked on a spit, whose dripping skeleton is festively paraded about the dining hall to the cheers of all. "Don't you find this a little indulgent? Particularly in the present economic circumstances." says Sir Godber. "Oh, we never bother with 'present economic circumstances'." says the Dean. Chimes in the Senior Tutor, "We find that they tend to go away after fifty years or so." As Sir Godber and his wife set out to bring women into the college, bring financial order to the budget and bring contraceptive vending machines to the student restrooms, The Dean, the Senior Tutor and the other Fellows plot...and Skullion is just about to have a fit. He knows a gentleman when he sees one, and Sir Godber is not doing what a gentlemen does. He embarks on a campaign to see that Porterhouse traditions will be protected and that he'll be able to keep his job. In this vicious, amusing satire on class snobbery and England's Oxbridge ways, no one is spared and a few even die. In fact, one of the funniest turns of the knife depends at the conclusion on another episode of a Porterhouse Blue. The program was adapted from the novel by Tom Sharpe, a British author who specializes in novels which skewer class pretensions. If you like Evelyn Waugh, you'll probably find Porterhouse Blue a rip. David Jason and Ian Richardson are in great form. And only Britain could come up with such a collection of fine actors able to play the aging protectors of tradition and fine wines. I remember years ago seeing Our Man in Havana and being impressed by Paul Rogers, a man I'd never heard of before, playing a key role amidst the star power of Alec Guinness, Ernie Kovacs, Noel Coward and Ralph Richardson. At 70, Rogers plays the Dean of Porterhouse with great, self-serving style and sly humor. He is one of the many actors in Porterhouse Blue who are, as they say, spot on. The DVD is available for now only as a Region Two release. It runs for three hours and fourteen minutes and was originally broadcast on British television in four episodes. There are no extras. The quality of the DVD transfer is not bad, about what you'd expect from a good VHS tape.
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