"Director: Peter Delane"

• Director's Commentary | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £7.97   |  Saving you £12.02 (150.82%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The brilliance of Directors Commentary is its simplicity. Take 15 minutes of a classic 70s TV show and have Rob Brydon (Marion & Geoff) talk over the top of it in the character of retired director Peter Delane. A monstrously hypnotic creation, like a slightly more coherent Rollie Birkin QC (Paul Whitehouse's drunk in The Fast Show), Delane spouts random gibberish about actors and the craft of directing, throwing in hilariously unpredictable tangential asides. So, in the four episodes of Bonanza we learn that it was shot in Yorkshire and featured the first screen appearance of Ricky Gervais; Mr & Mrs. was apparently the training ground for Ridley Scott; Delane considers The Bounder to be his Goodfellas; and Only When I Laugh was originally set in a Police Station. Everyone from Keith Chegwin to Chris Evans are subject to outbursts of abuse, making the idea of his oft-referenced three-part autobiography (Memory Delane) an appealing idea. On this disc 11 episodes are collected together; but rather than watch them all at once the viewer would be well advised to ration their intake of Delane's "happy days punctuated by deep black pits of depression". --Paul Tonks