Customer Reviews

Nightingales [DVD]

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This show wasn't of the same caliber as all time classics of British comedy, but it had some great scenes, great episodes (one with the hypnotists is my favorite), but on the other hand some things simply didn't work well. Overall fun to watch.

I vaguely remembered watching this first time round on an old black and white TV.

IT Crowd meets Security Workers in a Birmingham Office Block.
Visually, the quality could do with a massive clean up, but the humour is top notch.
The cast become clearly very comfortable together.

If you like surreal and a touch of nostalgia, then this is for you!
"nobody here, but us chickens"

The weird and wonderful lives of three bizarre night security guards. It will keep you laughing all the way through. Special guest appearances from Eric the Werewolf. Exceptionally funny is the episode where the place is likened to a ship. Brilliant.

I had faint memories of watching a couple of episodes of Nightingales when it was first broadcast and finding it pretty funny. I baulked at paying high-street prices to see if it had stood the test of time but, at Amazon's current very reasonable price for this two-disk set, thought it was worth a shot.

Well was it?

Absolutely!

The blurb on the box compares Nightingales to The League of Gentlemen and Little Britain. Fair enough; these are all comedies that rely on character-driven absurdity/grotesqueness. For my money though, Nightingales most closely resembles Bottom, but with less slapstick and more bizarre and inspired twists. Who could fail to have a chuckle or two at the totally off-the wall notion of a lycanthrope heart-surgeon or the cringingly awful "entertainment" served to the hapless "ex-page 3 girl" or our protagonists lapsing into Shakespearean villainy mode? So far so good. But it is in series two that you'll hit the mother-lode of comedy - every episode contains many genuine laugh-out-loud moments, with delightfully surreal incongruities and some outrageous visual gags. In fact, similarities to Bottom abound in the Christmas special and the whole burglar scenario but, as Nightingales aired first, if there was any plagiarism involved, it would appear to have come from Messrs Mayall and Edmondson. The final episode - in which our heroes' doppelgangers turn up, is almost too weird for words and must have been an absolute blast to perform in. You will certainly be left wanting more! When guest stars turn up, such as Peter Vaughan as the outrageously brutal inspector and Mary - The Christmas Allegory (Lia Williams), they put in great performances too, but it is the inspired interplay between would-be toff and intellectual Carter (Lindsay), splendidly OTT yob (Threlfall) and the delightfully optimistic Dixon of Dock Green era Sarge (Ellis) that hold it all together.

Forget the credit crunch. If laughter is the best therapy, then this certainly is a few quid well spent.

I'd not seen this show when it first aired - but I bought this on the strength of the reviews and I'm glad I did. Made me laugh out loud on many occasions and is something I will definately watch again.

This is one of those must-have DVDs.

Nightingales is pure eccentric British humour at its best. The excellent cast and scripts were made for each other.

Production budget looks to have been about a fiver per episode - but that doesn't stop this show being just superb.

Not a lot in TV comedy these days can touch it for originality, or laugh out loud insanity.

I remember the series when it was on T.V it was Very good. I have looked for this DVD for ages.

Very Good Nostalgic Comedy (GREAT)

this is a bit hit and miss to be honest,but every now and then it has you laughing out loud (when have you burst out laughing at the present dross of sit-coms).Lindsay and Threlfall are a great double act,so if you like your humour off-beat,stupid,quirky and surreal,this is for you.

Surely one of the most under-rated sitcoms ever, "Nightingales" still stands up today. Other shows have subverted the medium, broken the "fourth wall" and so on, but few have gone quite as far as this. Scenes played as though in Shakesperian dramas? Check. Frequent use of allegory, and acknowledgement of this by the cast? Check. Surreal characters like Swan the werewolf medical student, and "Terry Oblong"? Check. Characters being made to build dry-stone walls in an office to win a competition? Check.

The one criticism I have is of the DVD transfer itself. The package thankfully includes both series in full, but the authoring is diabolical - cheap, shoddy-looking menus and, worst of all, half way through each episode they have left in the "end of part one" and "part two" cards! Very poor work by Network DVD I'm afraid.

Found this completely by accident whilst searching through Amazon. When i started reading the reviews I vaguely remembered it being on late at night on Channel 4. Bought the DVD and I must admit its excellent. Series 2 is far more surreal than Series 1, and in a couple of episodes I did have to do a doubletake to find out what was going on! The acting by the 3 main characters is brilliant, and its such a shame no more series were commissioned. Did anyone else think that Lindsays character has certain similarities with Harold Steptoe in Steptoe and Son?

"Theres nobody here but us chickens!".

The only down side is that Network could have made a bit more effort with the presentation of the episodes. They still have the Part 1/2 for the ad breaks. I was surprised the original ads werent left in to be honest!