Morecambe & Wise - The Surviving Footage From The First Series And The Complete Second Series [1968] [DVD]

At last, after all those years of the same old snippets, clips and best-of compilations, the BBC is finally honouring their greatest ever comedy stars by releasing complete series of their work. Each show is intact - including musical breaks, giving us a gloriously nostalgic trip back to that not-so mythical Golden Age of Television.

Now, as these series are released in sequential order, we will have the chance to see their work in context and watch them develop from being merely superb comedians to being the truly great ones we all know and love. I can guarantee that even ardent fans will not have seen most of this material before, unless they caught the original broadcasts.

Presented here is:

- what little remains of M&W's first BBC series from 1968 (not counting their earlier, lost series from the 1950s): about 25 minutes of Episode 6 in black and white. The material and presentation are very similar to their ITV Two of a Kind series - indeed the Two of a Kind theme tune was still being used for both these series, one of several features which will surprise those only familiar with their later BBC work. Guest star Edmund Hockridge (not a name you hear much these days) joins in the tiresome Desert Song finale. This scene ends with 'the boys' removing their robes and thanking the audience for watching. No song or fat lady!

- The four episodes, each 45 to 50 minutes long, of Series 2 from 1969. This is where the real treasures are to be found. Everything we came to cherish in their shows is here in rough, unpolished form. The change to colour gives the shows all the immediacy of their best known work; the picture quality is excellent throughout.

This series was made after Eric recovered from his first serious heart attack and it seems to have done him the world of good: he is in cracking form. On his first entrance, he shouts down to his heart, 'Keep going!', at once drawing our attention to his physical vulnerability and to his zest for life. Maybe his brush with death gave an added emotional level to the pair's work too: suddenly the audience realised how much they loved him and how lucky they were to have him.

As the series progresses we can clearly see the influence of Eddie Braben, their finest writer: Ernie becomes less brash and sarcastic, more childishly pompous and pleased with himself; more earnest, in fact. Eric becomes more dominant and daring in his comedy. He also seems to adlib more, though as ever with these two it is almost impossible to 'see the join': to work out what is genuinely spontaneous and what is only rehearsed until it looks spontaneous - the mark of really great comics. At one point Eric chides Ernie in highly technical terms for mis-timing a laugh: 'Don't build when the laugh's not there!' he scolds. Conversely, when Ernie effortlessly picks up a cue line after one of Eric's geuinely adlibbed excursions, Eric touchingly says, 'Thanks for bringing me back,' before carrying on with the dialogue. That moment reveals precisely why they were so potent as a team and gives the lie to the ignorant dismissals of Ernie, which you used to hear quite a lot, as a second-rater who rode to fame on Eric's talent.

The guests in Series Two are Peter Cushing (here is the genesis of the long-running gag about him not being paid), Juliet Mills (who looks like she is having a hilarious time in their sketch together, rather than taking it all very seriously as their stars later did and which was much funnier), Edward Woodward and musical guests such as Moira Anderson, Kenneth McKellar, Vince Hill, Bobbie Gentry and of course, Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, who provide surprisingly effective and fun 'up' music in each show.

I saw no sign of Susan Hampshire and Frankie Vaughan though they are mentioned on the cover.

The colour shows all end with the utter delight of Bring Me Sunshine, which never fails to bring a tear to the eye. The first show actually has an extended, two-verse version of the song and I suppose must have been the first time they ever performed it.

This is one series of releases that is going to get better with each new volume. I regard it as one of the most important events in British comedy history. Buy it!

As has been mentioned below, this is where Morecambe and Wise became the Morecambe and Wise that are so warmly remembered. Eric Morecambe once said that their premise was that everyone knew that Ernie was an idiot and that Eric was a bigger idiot, and in their early days, this was certainly the case. Eric was gormless and naive (but still providing the greater part of the comedy), and Ernie was the suave one with the putdowns. And that stuff is still good, but with these shows things changed. Eric suddenly was allowed to be astute, more astute than Ernie - even though Little Ern is still quite suave in these episodes and doesn't send himself up quite as much as he will (and which is probably the reason why people seem to think Ern was just a straight man when he is very funny in himself and when I was a kid he was my favourite of the pair - see the point where he starts dancing wildly in the end credits of the first episode of the second series). There's a touch of the anarchy of the Marx brothers in the show from hereon out, with Eric bursting the pomposity of drama and classical acting and oh, so many things. But they also retain the innocence that was so wonderful in Laurel and Hardy.

And finally (I'm only 28) seeing the shows uncut and all the way through is wonderful. As is standard nowadays, jokes bleed between sketches as when Ann Hamilton appears in her second sketch with Peter Cushing and Eric remarks "It's the doctor again! What's she doing here?" and there's a nice little comment about Kenny Ball who is a regular on the show, but whose contribution - a musical interlude - is naturally cut out of clip shows.

This hasn't been a particularly well constructed review because I'm gushing. All right, there is something slightly off about the early episodes, where it's clear that Eric and Ernie are getting back into the swing of things and getting a hang of the altered dynamics of their on-screen relationship, but by the episode with Edward Woodward (and one of the best guest star performances by the Equaliser himself) they're knocking them out of the park. And the thing is it's still funny. Nearly forty years on and it's still funny.

Morecambe and Wise are obviously worth five stars of anybody's rating system, but I have only given this 2-dvd set three stars for the simple reason that the packaging misrepresents the contents.

You are promised "The Surviving Footage From The First Series And The Complete Second Series." What you actually get is the surviving footage from the first series, but only four of the seven shows from the second series.

According to the packaging, the guest stars include Susan Hampshire and Frankie Vaughan, but these two shows are not included.

If only four shows survive from the second series, then the packaging should say so.

If you are a Morecambe and Wise fan, then by all means buy this set and split your sides with laughter, but be aware that you are not getting what the packaging says you are getting.