DVD Review: Russell Howard's Good News

Russell Howard's Good News DVD. Copyright: Avalon Television

Less scary than Frankie Boyle but more energetic than Dara O'Briain, Russell Howard might just be the best thing to come out of BBC Two's Mock The Week. This, his own show, is highly enjoyable too. Essentially a one man stand-up Have I Got News For You (with sketches), Howard takes a look at the week's news stories and rips the piss out of them.

And, there, potentially, lies the problem. This is effectively a condensed hour long version of Howard's first series from 2009 and traditionally the DVD format is not topical comedy's friend. In fact, 2010 has been such an eventful year that much of the news footage from even six months ago already looks fit for the archives of ages. Any footage of Gordon Brown, for example, seems remarkably outdated, and even the Susan Boyle gags look a little old hat now. (If they ever weren't.)

Thankfully, this doesn't matter too much in Howard's case as he tends to spend as much time riffing off internet clips and the eccentric behaviour of newsreaders as he does responding to the big stories. That said, his attacks on "spam-faced hatemonger" Nick Griffin, at the time of the BNP leader's appearance on Question Time do stand up very well.

The bonus features aren't bad either. First, there's the unaired pilot edition of the show from early last year (basically not too different from normal except on a lower budget), an okay audio commentary by Howard and the writers and a slightly dull behind-the-scenes film. Most interesting is the "Unseen Bits and Pieces" where Howard introduces the various sketches and routines that for a number of reasons, weren't used. It's interesting to see why they failed. Most of them either simply died on their arse or in some cases freaked out the audience more and they amused them.

Overall though, this is an entertaining anthology of a decent series from one of British comedy's rising stars.

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