Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"What Did I Do to Deserve This?", October 13, 2006
In the first few minutes of the 2004 BBC television comedy, "The Worst Week of My Life", Howard Steele (Ben Miller) has a tender, morning bedroom moment with his beautiful, fiance', Mel (Sarah Alexander of "Coupling" fame). The phone rings and Mel's mother is on the line in hysterics over the wrong wedding furniture being delivered. So much for tender moments. The show chronicles the wickedly funny, horrible seven days (each episode represents one day) leading up to the couple's wedding ceremony. You know 'Murphy's Law', "If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong." Well, just double that for poor, Howard. Wedding furniture is the least of his problems. The main crux of the matter is that Howard will do just about anything to try and please the well to do, 'blue blood' family, that he's marrying into. The family includes Mel's humorless, stuff-shirt father, Dick (Geoffrey Whitehead), hysterical mother, Angela (Alison Steadman) and sluttish younger sister, Sophie (Emma Pierson). Disaster seems to follow anytime Howard tries to please these people and help out. Trouble seems to grow exponentially as the poor man attempts to cover-up each previous mis-step. Just a couple of Howard's disasters include losing the family's priceless, heirloom ring in the sewer, destroying a painting of his father-in-law, crashing a car into a newly built brick wall, mistakenly giving condoms as a wedding gift, getting into bed and spooning his mother-law, killing the beloved, family dog with a cement mixer and accidentally putting the family's elderly, grandmum into a coma. Things finally come to a head, when the couple must deal with a psychotic, female stalker, who's been plagueing Howard throughout the series. Sounds pretty dark, right? Yup... but this is 'black' humor at its' best! By the end of the series, we seem to be witnessing more of an endurance test, than a wedding ceremony. Howard and Mel will do anything to get to the finish line. It's absolutely gutt-busting, hilarious! Hopefully the BBC will give us a second series, that includes more of the honeymoon. The last scene of the last episode hints, that there is more trouble to come! Highly recommended!
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely hilarious!, October 2, 2006
Nothing beats British humor! There have been few American shows that have made me laugh out loud as much as this one has. I think Coupling was the last show that got belly laughs out of me, and that was a British series as well. The Worst Week of My Life chronicles the seven days before the wedding of Howard (Ben Miller) and Mel (Sarah Alexander). Everyone knows that the week before a wedding could be stressful, but Howard hadn't anticipated how stressful things would get during that week. Everything that could possibly go wrong does, and in his desperate attempt to impress his future parents-in-law (played by Alison Steadman and Geoffrey Whitehead), protect a wedding ring that's a family heirloom, getting stuck with the less than ideal best man, and avoiding a psychotic ex-girlfriend (of sorts), Howard only makes things worse.
As I said earlier, I couldn't stop laughing. These are seven of the funniest episodes I have seen in quite a long time. The way Howard gets himself in one mess after another will have you in stitches. The part about his wanting to impress his in-laws sort of reminded me of Meet the Parents, and Ben Miller reminded me of Ben Stiller (even their names are similar!), but this series is ten times funnier than the aforementioned movie. I remember Sarah Alexander from her role of Susan in Coupling, and even though she had a plain role as Howard's fiancee in this one, it was fun to see her in another show. Alison Steadman made a wonderful performance as Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice '95 and she impressed me with her comic timing again. And I loved Geoffrey Whitehead's performance! I loved his deadpan expressions when saying something funny. I recognized a few faces in this series, people I'm sure I'd seen before but cannot remember where. Anyway, I love, love, LOVE The Worst Week of My Life. This BBC comedy series has found a special place on my DVD shelf and I shall watch it again and again. I can't wait for the second part of the series to be released on this side of the pond.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely hysterical..., March 10, 2007
This is one of the funniest shows I have ever seen. Really. Even my husband, who at times has no sense of humor, watched an episode and was hooked. We watched the second season this past fall and were thrilled that it maintained is hilarity. If you haven't seen this show, give it a chance. I wish I had not seen it so I could watch it for the first time again.
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