At Last the 1948 Show
Director: Ian FordyceStudio: Tango Entertainment
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Format: Color, NTSC
Running Time: 122 minutes
DVD Release: July 26th 2005
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DVD Review
Just two series were made before it became no more and it became a revolution that was destined to change the face of TV comedy forever… 'At Last The 1948 Show' (actually broadcast in 1967). Bursting onto the nation's small screens in an explosion of unrelated and often surreal sketches, its main perpetrators were John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman and Tim Brooke-Taylor and what 'At Last The 1948 Show' began the inestimable Monty Python would one day finish in mind-blowing style.... This 2 DVD set features the recently rediscovered episodes of the classic 'At Last The 1948 Show' series.
User Reviews
At last! - Rating: 4/5
I had read about this program in the book "From Fringe To Flying Circus", but as I had also heard that there were no surviving episodes (David Frost's production company having erased them all), all I had to 'remember' the show by were copies of the scripts. Well, that't not true any more. Some kinescopes turned up in Australia (along with some more material that didn't make it onto this collection), and now we can enjoy the show a bit more than parts of its intended audience (who were a bit confused because the broadcast schedule kept changing).
I first became a fan of most of the show's cast members through the radio show "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again", and therefore it's a real treat to see Jo Kendall, Bill Oddie, and Eric Idle working alongside the regular cast. John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Marty Feldman make a great ensemble, and the lovely Aimee MacDonald appears to have dropped in from a different show altogether-- which just adds to the silliness.
Since "I.S.I.R.T.A", Monty Python, "The Goodies", "That Was The Week That Was", and Marty Feldman's projects often overlapped in time, it's fun to see how various sketch ideas (like the quiz show sketch) bounce back and forth from one show to another. The "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch has an especially long pedigree, and Tim Brooke-Taylor (who basically originated the sketch) acknowledges all the changes it went through over the years. There is a real sense of teamwork here, which also turns up in "Monty Python"; you've got the humor of conflict (Cleese and Chapman) playing off pure silliness (Brooke-Taylor and Feldman), and it's a lot of fun to watch.
Visually, the picture quality is as good as can be expected for a collection of kinescopes, but the video is still very good. The extras include a nice interview with Tim Brooke-Taylor, as well as promotional material for "Do Not Adjust Your Set", a comedy show featuring the other future members of "Monty Python"-- as well as David Jason and Denise Coffey, who have gone on to do great things on their own.
I hear that more material has turned up than has been released on this disk; I look forward to a second DVD!
If you're a fan of Monty Python, you should enjoy At Last The 1948 Show - Rating: 5/5
Aired in 1967, these five surviving episodes of At Last the 1948 Show are truly funny and definitely contain material that would fit nicely into Monty Python's Flying Circus. Some notable examples of this are the following: a sketch nearly identical to the 4 Yorkshiremen sketch, a sketch with John Cleese as a fascist gameshow host, and a sketch about a stubborn actor in a "Learning English" video. I found all five episodes extremely funny, and I would recommend it to any Python fan.
Aimi much better than some say - Rating: 4/5
I first saw At Last the 1948 Show when it was first screened, and it was a revelation then. At the time, Tim Brooke-Taylor and John Cleese were much better known than the other players. Brooke-Taylor's 'automatic hospital visitor' is, even now, a gold classic sketch. I remember some other great sketches, now unfortunately lost.
At the time, many people did not understand what Aimi Macdonald was doing, and it's plain many still don't. This probably included the male actors. What she is doing is very subtle and is true art. She is sending up and questioning the whole concept of the show itself. Brooke-Taylor says in his interview that he now thinks she deserves much more credit than she ever got. I agree. While pretending to be an airhead who thinks the whole show is about her, she actually made the whole show revolve around her. And her version of the 'Black Bottom Stomp' (now lost) is a hilarious sendup of 1920's camp.
less funny than Python - Rating: 3/5
These five half hour programs are not as funny as Monty Python, but still amusing. The production budget was low and so most of the material is people wearing suits in office environments. Many of the sketches are too long and drawn out which reduces their amusement level.
Weak stuff - Rating: 2/5
Here are five old half hour television shows that are important only to those interested in the subsequent histories of the participants. The material is very weak. And the bits with women, namely one Aimi Macdonald, are so bad they are embarrassing. It's great to see Marty Feldman, and he does more than his share to keep things afloat. Mostly these programs point to the genius that soon inspired the Monty Python series and, later, several humorous films.
