Saturday, May 30, 2009

DVD: Tim Vine - So I Said To This Bloke


Starz Home Entertainment

Directed by Steve Kemsley
Written by Tim Vine
Starring Tim Vine


Tim Vine's entire stand-up routine is one-liners and puns and he brings a completely new set of them to his second live DVD. It's literally non-stop puns, many fuelled by cheap props, split up by the occasional song. Unfortunately for Tim, despite having been in the game a lot longer, this kind of comedy is rather overshadowed by the strangely popular Jimmy Carr at the moment, but the capacity crowd at London's Bloomsbury Theatre for this recording does show that he still has a substantial following.

Vine's puns range from the genuinely sublime to the simply moronic (the "pen behind the ear" segment was both stupid and far too long). The major problem is the distribution between these two extremes is not even (or to use the correct terminology, 'normal'). He is admittedly better with the one-line jokes. Most of the ones that go on any longer than that end up being very disappointing; usually either blatantly obvious or simply weak.

But the main problem with his one-liners, aside from many of them just not being very good, is that they are completely unlinked. If he could have woven several of them together into a story of some kind this could have been and absolute riot. As it is this ends up being like watching someone read out Christmas cracker jokes for an hour. He actually makes several gags about the quality of his own show, which is a tell-tale sign that he knows where the problems are and is trying to pre-empt any criticism.

On top of all of this Vine makes the biggest mistake a comedian can make; he finds his own jokes far too funny, even to the point where he pauses for too long with a slightly goofy look on his face after some jokes to make sure everyone's laughing along with him.

On the extras, there are plenty of them, and none of them are funny. Well, that's not quite true, an outtake from the main show where Tim's dad Guy gets on stage to tell the first joke he told Tim as a child is quite good and should probably have been left in the show. The rest, particularly the over-long sketch featuring Tim slapsticking his way through several sports, are terrible.

Even for fans of this style of comedy, I don't really see how this can be considered a good example. So many of the jokes are simply not funny, and the composition of the act borders on amateurish. While Vine is a perfectly charismatic and likeable performer that just isn't enough to save what is otherwise a surprisingly disjointed show.

“ like watching someone read out Christmas cracker jokes ”



Special Features: 'Tim's Dad Tells A Joke' / 'Family Holiday On The Piano' / 'Paranamasiac' / 'Parade of Sport' / 'Jukebox Pop Video' / 'Flag Hippo In Love' / Deleted Scenes / Tim's Panto Snapshot / Tim Vine In Conversation

TECHNICAL DETAILS
DVD Release Date: October 27, 2008
Studio: Feel Anime Studios
Feature Running Time: 64 mins
Special Features Running Time: 56 mins
Certificate: PG
Language(s): English
Subtitles: English
Other Format(s): None