Simon Munnery - Hello [DVD]

It's sad to have to admit at the start of a review, that my major claim to fame is that I was in the same class at school as Simon Munnery. Indeed, at the end of the first year at Secondary School, Simon and I, dressed up as cats, entertained the audience by dancing with each other to the strains of You and the Night and the Music, during an end of year school play (it was an all boys school, in case you were wondering!). Little did I realise at the time, that my own theatrical skills would inspire Simon to pursue a career in show business himself ! For "Munners" (as we all called him), as well as being a thoroughly unpretentious and decent fellow, was by far and away the cleverest person that it has been my misfortune to ever come across. Whilst the rest of us in school struggled to master complex algorithms, the theory of relativity, as well as trying to understand what the hell Shakespeare was on about in Romeo and Juliet, Simon knew it all already - he seemed to have been born with most of the Encyclopedia Brittanica hotwired into his brain ! On occasion too, Simon could also be very funny, albeit of course, in a very clever way ! He was never the class joker (that was Alan Miles), so if you had told me at the beginning of the 1980's that Simon in adulthood would develop into a brilliant scientist who would go on to discover a solution for global warming thereby saving mankind from self-inflicted extinction, I wouldn't have been surprised. But instead, if you had said that rather than pursuing Nobel Peace Prize related activities, Simon would instead become a stand-up comedian, well, that would definitely have been hilarious !

However, like a nightmarish recurring thread in our lives, this DVD is testimony that as usual, Simon has been proved right, whereas I am wrong ! Thankfully - for my own sense of self worth and sanity - I haven't seen or spoken to Simon since he went off to university and I went to work for a bank nearly a quarter of a century ago. Which perhaps, gentle reader, may go some way to reassure you about my impartiality with this review, a vaguely familiar face peering out from the cover of this DVD prompting me to investigate further. And very worthwhile it has been too, as this is a very funny and generously filled DVD of a very good comedian. For those who are familiar with his work, this represents a kind of "greatest hits" of Simon Munnery - Alan Parker and Sherlock Holmes (twice) are here, as well as a whole show given in Cardiff 2007. If however you are not familiar with Munnery's unique brand of humour, it will be refreshing to see a comedian who doesn't have to get his laughs by ranting and swearing at an audience, but instead by inviting them to gently poke fun at the absurdities of life, the English language and Munnery himself (an aside on modern art is superb, hence the title of this review). Yes, it is a 15 certificate, but only because of Munnery's extremely funny discourse on children swearing. Overall, it is well worth a viewing.

On a final note, I have to mention the packaging, a cardboard sleeve, reminiscent of the kind that you get with a give-away CD/DVD in national newspapers. For some reason, the normally excellent Amazon insist on sending this in an over-sized box, which on two occasions for me arrived empty, the DVD having slipped out in transit. Of course Amazon refunded me straight away on both occasions, but I ended up ordering it direct from the production company, Go Faster Stripe, with no problems. However, there is a part of me that hopes all this is intentional on the part of Mr Munnery, an ingenious way of increasing sales whilst at the same time ensuring that he is a cult figure, at least in the staff rooms of Royal Mail sorting offices up and down the UK. As I said, he's very clever....

I came to this after so much reference to Simon by Stewart Lee. It's pretty patchy, but endearingly and charmingly so and reminds me very much of Spike Milligan's work. He bravely goes off on some, at times, slightly shambolic tangents with part of it hitting the mark and the rest leaving some of the viewers at this end a bit baffled. But I like that - his comment on the dividing line between art and comedy is pretty much spot on. You get a feeling he just can't help himself - he has to do this , and perhaps the audience's reaction is slightly secondary in importance. The ladies, needlessly in my opinion, bristled a bit at what appeared to be some sexist elements but I think they were missing the point. Buy this DVD - he deserves the encouragement.

I bought a number of products as Christmas presents incluing this one. The others were fine and very good value. This was very disappointing and vastly overpriced for what it was. A DVD in a flimsy cardboard cover with no information booklet. I know this is not Amazon's fault but I would like the bad packaging and presentation of this item to be taken up with the supplier. Not good value for money at all.