Bottom – Live 2003 – Weapons Grade Y-Fronts Tour DVD Comedy (2003) Rik Mayall

Description

Another live visit to the sordid world of Eddie and Richie (Ade Edmondson and Rik Mayall); this time they are out to save the world from ‘bad’ underpants.From
Bottom Live 2003: Weapons Grade Y-Fronts Tour is reputedly the swan song for Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall’s Eddie Hitler and Richie Richard. If so, it’s a mixed blessing, for while much of it is funny, it’s also a long way from the original BBC Bottom series. The TV incarnation was always crude, but worked hilariously because it balanced real characterisation and comically absurd ingenuity with the vulgarity. Here Edmundson and Mayall spend 90 minutes swearing as loudly and repulsively as possible and indulging in cartoon violence, which can never–for reasons of self-preservation and the legal ramifications of killing people on stage–be as insanely inventive as on television.
With no other characters (where are you Spudgun and Dave Hedgehog when you’re most needed?) and a barely existent story involving a device that inserts a sofa in a part of Richie where no sofa should fit, and a time machine that takes our heroes on a quest to reach the bar before the audience, the material is thinly stretched. Nevertheless, the theatre audience at the Cliffs Pavilion, Southend-on-Sea seem to have had a fantastic time being roundly abused by the stars. Probably, you just had to be there.
On the DVD: Bottom Live 2003 is presented with, for a live theatre show, a strong, anamorphically enhanced 16:9 image and perfectly serviceable, clear stereo sound. It’s far from special, but notably better than the technical quality of previous Bottom live videos. The only extra is a slideshow of backstage images, which runs for a minute-and-a-half