Black Books - The Complete Box Set [DVD]

Excellent series about a bookshop, its owner and his two ‘friends’. Each episode is so funny. Highly recommended.

Great price for a bran new dvd box set

Black Books as a series is one of the most original, random and hilarious creations of the last ten years. There are moments of genius right from the off, with the ingestion of the Little Book Of Calm, deliberately inciting your own maiming at the hands of Millwall fans to get out of doing a tax return, an accountant being chased from his building by thousands of police officers and the joy of being a 'Birth Partner' all covered.Then you have another 18 episodes to go!I won't bang on too much about the series itself, as the other reviewers here have covered that in enough detail.The box set itself - having waited several months (and three release date changes) to purchase this legendary series in the hope of some Space-esque special features only available to the discerning, box-set owner - was a bit of a disappointment.It is just the three discs from the earlier individual series releases put into an admittedly snazzy cover. It does, however, feature a 'foreword' by Dylan Moran on the packaging itself which is really funny (if not entirely relevant!).In short, if you've never seen Black Books but like your humour dry, cynical and well executed, then this is for you. If you already own the earlier discs and are looking for better special features, then this is for someone else.Enter the thing. And you too can win, a thing...

The next time you're having a bad day, sit down and watch Black Books. Within minutes you'll not only feel better from laughing, you will feel comforted by the fact that nobody you are ever going to meet is as cruelly sadistic and utterly bitter as Bernard Black, proprietor of the world's worst bookshop.Of late, "quirky" has become a buzzword of comedy, almost a fashionable word to insert into a rave review, and one of which I am intensely wary, as it ordinarily implies it is of the same brand of "fun" as, for example, a businessman who thinks mouth-shaped cufflinks are "fun". However, there are few other words to adequately describe the occasional surrealness of these half-hour jaunts into the grime of Bernard, Manny and Fran's dusty world. Refreshingly avoiding the cheap laugh bought by so many comedies simply by adding in the occasional profanity, Bernard expresses his utter disdain for everyone and everything in ways which can only be described as pure creativity. If you haven't been introduced to actor and writer Dylan Moran's unique brand of anger, you're in for a treat. Meanwhile, Bill Bailey as Manny provides a delightfully childlike and endearingly terrified pincushion for Bernard's razor-sharp remarks and Tamsin Greig puts forth a superb performance as Fran, their oldest friend and faithful bringer of wine.Full of conversations you'll be re-enacting with your friends and with a whole pile of extras such as the bizarre "Black Dolls" puppet show, this intelligent and yet simultaneously brainless comedy is exactly what you need to remind you that however bad life gets, at least you don't work at Black Books.

"I ate all your bees!"I caught this episode once on TV (and now fortunately on Dave, Result!) and I had no idea what it was. Many of the cast I had never heard of before, except Bill Bailey and I found it quite funny, but I wasn't rolling around the floor. Never the less, I had to know more and it took me the best part of a year to find out what the programme was another 6 months to actually buy it. I put in my DVD stand and left it well alone until my fiancée suggested we watch it as we had never seen it before.I'm such a fool, I let this slip by for YEARS! My love affair with Black Books began in August 2009 and I have exposed its brilliance to many of my friends and people I work with, however I won't lend them my copy for fear of the disc being scratched.Its pure comedy brilliance. I was already a fan of Bill Bailey, have been a keen follower of Dylan Moran for a long time (I totally forgot he was in Black Books when I bought the DVD all that time ago) and love most things written by Graeme Linen. What makes this a special comedy for me is I found it very sarcastic and insulting. The best type of comedy in my opinion. Dylan Moran always appears drunk, grouchy, messy and against all things polite, where as Bill Bailey takes the abuse and Tamsin Greig sits in the middle, even though drink is flying around Dylan and Tamsin constantly. If you doubt how hilarious this show is, it had a 3 series run, more could be made but Dylan decided against it (end on a high) and is very much loved by lots. Watch the episode with the expensive wine or first episode if season 1.