Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Punderful, 20 Nov 2008
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Recorded at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London during July 2008, Vine is cheesily shameless in his presentation of the most tenuous one-liners, ridiculous songs and fooling about with props. All are unveiled with such a devotion to silliness that you forgive even the hoariest routines, the comic acknowledging occasional groans with a "don't worry, we'll put the laughs on later".
An hour of even his slickest jokes would be wearing though and Vine wisely varies the pace and intersperses his one-liners with a greater number of songs than he's ever previously performed, each as utterly pointless as the last.
A standout is the gleefully daft Flag Hippo, which he imagines keeping us awake later pondering just what the hell it was about. Elsewhere, he spends almost ten minutes trying to catch a pen behind his ear, skilfully keeping the crowd invested in his monotonous enterprise by testing their patience to ludicrous, and thus extremely funny, excess.
Although Vine's set is undeniably formulaic and family-friendly, these limitations compel him to excel within the parameters he imposes on himself, challenging the audience to second-guess his punchlines from the setups while throwing in enough absurd detours to keep it interesting.
Extras on the disc are many but disappointing. Most are simply Vine messing about with his camcorder and friends, a spoof report on him trying various sports scarcely justifying the time and effort expended upon it.
Still, there's an amusing interview with a psychologist in which she identifies his addiction to puns as arising from emotional issues and a fear of intimacy, to which he responds appropriately enough with a pun. And a sweet moment when his dad is hauled on stage to deliver the first joke he ever told the young Tim.
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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Quickfire punning and wordplay, 28 Oct 2008
I'm really torn between awarding three and four stars for this. On the one hand Vine's act IS funny, but in a sort of way which makes the audience groan at how bad and corny each joke is. It's intentionally lame humour.
He must average about one joke every ten seconds through this act, though there are a few longer jokes, such as the pen-behind-the-ear skit (which basically involves him throwing a pen to try to catch it behind his ear to a musical chant "Pen behind the ear! Pen behind the ear!") and the Flag Hippo sketch, where he sings to a man dressed as a hippo, asking the hippo to point to countries' flags on a chart the hippo is holding. The pen trick must last five minutes, though it seems longer.
Another random joke that I can recall is Vine holding up a sign that reads "FUTURE EVENTS" and he says, "There's a sign of things to come!" There are plenty of other gags involving props like this and most involve some kind of wordplay or pun.
However, I'm not sure who this comedy would appeal to. I notice some other reviewers have said that this would be good family viewing as it isn't rude or offensive, but I'm not sure that children would fully appreciate the extent to which Vine's humour relies on the manipulation of language. It IS often visual, too, but even his props and songs usually rely on language.
I must say that the jokes came so thick and fast that I often had to think about them quite a bit and though Vine does always leave a silence for it to sink in, sometimes he'd started another joke before I'd got the last one! The novelty did start to wear off after half an hour and I generally enjoyed the second half of the show less than the first.
Overall, I will say that Vine's act is a refreshing change in an age where most other comedians seem to rely on being vulgar and offensive to get laughs. Rude comedy does have its place, but, like I said, I enjoyed this change. Vine reminds me a little bit of Russ Abbot for some reason, with his silliness and ironic looks at the camera as he waits for the penny to drop with the audience.
I enjoyed it.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Family friendly groan-fest!, 7 Jan 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
As the world record holder for the number of jokes told in an hour, "Not Going Out" star Tim Vine is no stranger to the stand-up comedy stage. This new stage show of daft puns, groan-inducing one-liners and deranged comic songs faithfully follows the formula of 2004's "Tim Vine Live" DVD. As such, it contains very few surprises.
The punning rate on this DVD is extraordinary - so much so that by the time you've recovered from one gag, Vine is often three or four further on. His box of improbable props has expanded since the 2004 DVD; if anything, Vine relies more on these to get laughs and slightly less on the simple absurdity of the word-play in which he excels. The "pen behind the ear" routine, in particular, is mystifying and could be a turn-off for those who aren't already fans - although it does provide the set-up for one of the best sight gags in the show. Where Vine has raised his game is in the musical numbers, which are a good deal more sophisticated than the ones in the 2004 show. "My Marvellous Metronome" and "I'm Allergic to Choruses" stand out as comic highlights, and with "Flag Hippo" Vine reaches hitherto uncharted levels of surrealism.
As with the 2004 DVD, there's an impressive package of extras which range from the sublime ("Flag Hippo in Love") to the ridiculous (an absurd, and not altogether successful, Sunday-morning-TV-style spoof interview with the man himself). Best of the bunch is Vine's video diary shot backstage during the panto season. There's also an intriguing short from a psychologist exploring the underlying reasons for an addiction to appalling puns.
For those who like their comedy ground-breaking or subversive, Tim Vine is never going to be the artist of choice. But there is something refreshingly old-fashioned about a comedian whose stock in trade is a simple joy in playing with the absurdities of the English language. He's probably one of the few comedians whose shows can safely be watched by all the family. His jokes certainly bring out the big kid in me.
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