Bottom - Series 1-3 [DVD]

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It’s hardly known for its delicate, sensitive humour… but Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson’s bawdy 1990s comedy Bottom has fallen foul of the censors. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. After the first series was filmed in June and July 1991, Bottom was first announced in August, when the BBC reported that it had commissioned over 400 hours of new television programming for the upcoming autumn series. Edmondson said that one of the reasons for stopping the show was the struggle to come up with new ideas as "we'd already hit each other with everything in the flat".

Mayall tried to have Edmondson reconsider, but he "put his foot down and said, 'It's not going to work mate. Despite being a penniless slob, he occasionally projects a pompous sort of snobbery in an attempt to impress others and boost his self-esteem; he is sexually frustrated and obsessed with losing his virginity. The marriage aspect of the show is played up more in the earlier series, with Richie in the domestic setting, playing the housewife to Eddie’s breadwinner character, often coming in and hanging his hat and coat up and plonking himself in front of the TV, before they have their first domestic of the episode. In response, Mayall’s character Richie responds, shocked: ‘Eddie, a) the Queen doesn’t have jugs, she’s royalty and b) if she did have jugs she certainly wouldn’t get them out on a fiver - she’d save them for the fifty. In addition to the live shows, Rik and Ade performed a one-off set at the Peter Cook Posthumous Tribute in 2002.Several (but not all) of these scenes, as well as some smaller sections of dialogue also removed for timing reasons, are included in DVD releases. It focuses on Richard "Richie" Richard (Mayall) and Edward Elizabeth "Eddie" Hitler (Edmondson), two unemployed, crude, and perverted flatmates living in Hammersmith, London, who aspire to better themselves. The first season is delightfully funny for the most part, but the show really finds its feet once the characters of Spudgun and Dave Hedgehog are added into the mix. The plot of the season three episode Dough involves the pair forging money which contains pornographic doodles of the Royals that are described in the show as ‘tantamount to treason’. If you were there, please can you wrack your brains and DM me your memories of seeing them and if you have any souvenirs, sneaky photos or recordings.

It was not broadcast as part of the original series after Rachel Nickell was murdered on Wimbledon Common, due to which the BBC delayed its broadcast until a rerun of the second series on 10 April 1995. After some time the pair realised that they had produced a substantial work that would suit a feature film. I'm sure there will be a dept at the BBC that vets the suitability of what it releases (and re-releases). It started as a joke until they learned that Alan Yentob, then head of BBC2, disliked the title which convinced the pair to stick with it. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.The worst DVD debacle ever IMO was 'Bergerac' Series 1 of about three years ago when the entire set was made up of episodes heavily edited for afternoon repeats! Truly the wild boys of comedy, they despatch expletives like bullets, confronting every volatile situation with the force and momentum of an express train. This is most annoying, and surely happens due to pure laziness on the part of those in charge with releasing the material.

Newlyweds Richie and Edwina wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting hotel makes me wince more than it does laugh, but thankfully Bottom goes out on a high with the subsequent final episode.Further left on the same row I think I can see True Lies, Goodfellas and a big brown several disc special edition of The Two Towers.

Eddie, the more popular of the two, enjoys drinking regularly, and often secretly steals family heirlooms and cash from Richie, although he occasionally has inventive moments, like building a cash forger, an electric toilet, and a time machine. Bottom Live was filmed in 1993 at The Mayflower Theatre in Southampton as part of the Bottom Live Tour. The result was Guest House Paradiso, a spin-off to Bottom featuring Mayall and Edmondson as Richard Twat (pronounced "Twaite") and Eddie Elizabeth Ndingobamba, respectively, with Edmondson as director. Frank Tashlins comedy from 1966 with Doris Day, Rod Taylor, Arthur Goodfrey, John McGiver, Dom de Luise, Dick Martin a.Sometimes things get edited a bit for American network release, so I assume that sometimes these versions get made into box sets? After the first series had been filmed, Mayall ranked Bottom as their best work and marked "a new chapter" in his relationship with Edmondson.