Written by and starring Rob Brydon and Julia Davis, Human Remains features six different "mockumentaries" with the pair playing couples caught in bizarre, dysfunctional or hopelessly imbalanced relationships. These include an upper-class couple, in which wife openly pines for her first, lost love, whom she has buried on the grounds; a thoroughly homely hubby and wife who run a guest house in the Midlands that features an S&M parlour; and a ghastly pair of God-botherers who live in a state of curtain-twitching loathing of their neighbours. While the sheer range of... characters depicted in Human Remains represents a prodigious feat on the part of both actors, the show has much in common with Brydon's other hit Marion and Geoff. The strangeness or awfulness of each couple's situation generally takes a while to come into focus, the deeper truths conveyed through low-level bickering, cumulatively revealed in deceptively banal interviews to camera. Brydon and Davis are sometimes merciless in their satirical savagery, as with the Alanis Morissette wannabe Fonte Bund; at other times, Human Remains is too bleak to watch. However, the sheer acuity and detail with which these characters are unwittingly realised, coupled with the brilliance of the (semi-improvised) monologues/dialogue means that our encounters with them, although mercifully brief, are both hilarious and touching. This is an exceptional series. On the DVD: Human Remains features a generous package of extras, including deleted scenes and outtakes, among them an extension of the "healing" scene featured in the episode with the S&M couple, footage of the early rehearsals and improvisations from which the characters took shape, a commentary in which Davis and Brydon recap on the circumstances of the filming, an excerpt of the pair in S&M gear singing "American Pie" in rich Brummie accents and, best of all, the Fonte Bund Band in which the folk-rock duo featured in the series have an added, Spinal Tap-type documentary also starring John Martyn (who supplies the series' theme). --David Stubbs [show more]
This under-rated series from 2000 was created before the days of digital television and the pioneering BBC3 house of comedy. It comprises of six half-hour episodes detailing a slice of life of six different fictional couples, all of them played with astonishing detail by Rob Brydon and Julia Davis. As well as the series this DVD is packed with extras including a full commentary on every episode, outtakes, and personally-speaking and best of all, the chance to see the artists at work trying out and creating the characters by improvisation. There is also a backstage look at how the characters are created in make-up and how this brings them to life. I cannot recommend this DVD highly enough and would advise lovers of Nighty Night, Marion & Geoff or any of the Baby Cow studio output to invest this painfully dark, fly-on-the-wall gem.
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A series about six very different, unconventional, couples who unwittingly expose the ups and downs of their unusual relationships.
Rob Brydon and Julia Davis star in this collection of 'documentaries' looking at 6 very different couples with unconventional (or warped) lifestyles; such as the couple who run a B & B that includes an S & M room, the God-botherers whose house overlooks a Satan inspired garden and the musical (?) Bund family.
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