Despite friends telling me how "Friggin' Funny" and "Hilarious"
it was, I just didn't 'get it'. So it probably wasn't the best idea to
tune in for the very first time to the LB
universe to their Live Tour. A tour full of in jokes, recurring
characters and over excited fanaticised fans. And upon first viewing, I
didn't mind it at all. Little Britain Live
is of course a stage show based on the TV sketch series which is
written and performed by its stars, Matt Lucas and David Walliams. It
was originally announced as a one-month tour for the boys starting in
November 2005 and ending just before Christmas but has since become the
biggest comedy tour of all time with the final dates running past their
sold out dates across Australia (Williams mentions in one of the DVD
extras that they could have simply done one night at Wembeley stadium
as opposed to 116+ shows they did in theatres across the UK). While
I've never watched the show religiously, I have a pretty good grasp on
the more popular characters (Vikki, Lou & Andy, the weight loss
chick that yells "Fat Cow") so I wasn't going into this thing blind.
And while those who have never seen the show will find a few chuckles
here, the live show really relies on the fact the audience knows all
the nuances of each character - which is actually half the fun. I watched the show twice, once by myself - which I quite enjoyed - and once with a group of hardcore LB
fans. And to be honest, it actually wasn't as much fun. There were alot
of "Oh, that wasn't the same" and "that was to over the top", but some
massive belly laughs at the same time. I've seen a few TV to stage comedy adaptions in the past. I recall the Rik Mayall/Adrian Edmonson Bottom Live
shows were always much more entertaining than the TV series (bearing in
mind I saw the Live show prior to the TV show), so perhaps it all comes
down to perception and what you're used to. Overall, it's a good
nights viewing - which fans and newbies will enjoy alike. Whether
you're seeing the vomit fest at the village fete for the first time -
or the 50th - it's always going to make you laugh. And nudity in front
of a live audience is always worthy of a chuckle or two. Judging by the sizes of the audiences, if Little Britain gets any bigger - it might almost be time for a name change! DVD
Extras Absolutely
fantastic collection of extras on this on, almost more entertaining
than the feature itself. From an intense look behind the scenes and how
the amazingly quick costume changes are made (many suits are made with
a velcro split), a making of the DVD and it's filming, alternate and
deleted sketches from the tour (many were changed and tweaked after
they bombed over the first few weeks performances), there's not much
left untocuhed. However, the most riveting inclusion over the two
discs is the One Hour documentary which chronicals Williams swimming
the English Channel for the charity Sport Relief (part of Comic
Relief). It's absolutley spell binding to watch the journey of his
gruelling nine months of training to prepare for the swim. The training
coincided with Williams' and Lucas's Little Britain
tour so every morning before performing he had to complete several
hours of training before performing on stage in the evening, a schedule
worthy of a professional sportsman. Williams first swam from Portsmouth
to the Isle Of Wight in around 2 hours and he also completed an eight
hour swim off the coast of Croatia before embarking on the
cross-channel attempt. He successfully completed the swim in 10 hours
and 34 minutes to cover the 35 km (22 miles) stretch of sea, the
equivalent of 700 lengths of an Olympic standard swimming pool. This
placed his effort within the top 50 recorded times for an unaided
Channel crossing, in the process of which he raised over £1,000,000 in
donations. It's fantastic and almost warrants it's own DVD release. But it's inclusion here just makes LBL even more worthwhile to own. Conclusion:
Movie 75% Extras: 80% 
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