Bottom-Live: The Big Number 2 Tour (1995)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	107:37 (Case: 110)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (57:40)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Rik Mayall Adrian Edmondson
Case	?
RPI	$29.95	Music	None Given

    This is the second in a series of four stage shows based around the TV series Bottom, written and created by Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson. Recorded live at the Apollo Theatre in Oxford England in 1995, this performance is once again centred around the characters and surroundings familiar to those who watched the TV series. The show is presented in two acts with slightly different sets for both. The level of vulgarity is again high, so anyone with more delicate sensibilities might do well to stay clear.

    Act 1 see the boys planning for a visit by the Queen. Well, actually Richard is planning to make the Queen visit as she tours the Hammersmith area. His plan is to put a huge banner outside to attract her attention then have Eddie set off some fireworks in order to entice her to drop around for a cuppa. Naturally, things start to go awry from the off when Eddie misspells the word Queen on the bunting, the toilet cleaner accidentally eats away the toilet and leaves the germs and Eddie's idea of fireworks is to use Semtex for gunpowder.

    Act 2 and the boys are in jail. Sentenced to 350 years each for various offences against the firearms act, they now must contend with life behind bars and are already bored after twenty minutes of incarceration. Unfortunately for Rick, he's just eaten the contents of the slop bucket and Eddie finds himself summoned to meet Mr Big by Jeffrey, the insane p**** remover. After he returns, the worse for wear, he informs Richie that Mr Big is in love with him and wants to meet him, and now Richie is beside himself with worry.

    This is probably the weakest of the four discs in terms of content. There are certainly plenty of laughs for the fans but the script/plot for this one is fairly weak and the ad-libbing, although still the funniest part of the show, doesn't have the style or panache of the later two stage shows. All-in-all, though, this is a good series of discs that will hopefully complement the series when it is finally released on DVD (did someone say The Young Ones? We can only hope).

Video

    Possibly the worst of the four discs in terms of transfer, this one shows up a lot of defects that had been thankfully missing from the other three in the series. Nonetheless it is very watchable, although the quality is substantially reduced.

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, Full Frame and not 16x9 enhanced.

    There is not much sharpness in this transfer, with copious amounts of edge enhancement visible throughout. Shadow detail is only fair due to the extreme brightness of the set, although when you transition to the audience there is a lot of depth visible, even though it is quite dark. Grain is persistent and visible during the entire show but low level noise is not an issue with this disc.

    The colour is mostly okay except for some redness in the skin tones. Bright overhead lights make the whites bloom a little, but nothing too objectionable. The palette used is fairly small with little variety as you'd expect from a fairly static background. Chroma noise and bleeding are not an issue.

    Pixelization is rampant throughout where edge enhancement isn't visible. 18:19 on Rik Mayall's shirt is a typical example. The only other MPEG artefact that I noticed was some macro blocking at 55:28, but I'm actually becoming convinced this is an issue with my DVD player and not the disc. The overhead lights at the beginning of the disc show some slight aliasing (1:07) and overmodulation appears to be a culprit best visible at 18:19 on the parrot cage. The normal film artefacts are thankfully absent.

    There were no subtitles available on this disc.

    The layer change occurred at 57:50 and occurs mid-scene. Why they couldn't have located it during the intermission, 8 minutes earlier is beyond me - it isn't like there are a mass of extras on the disc, or a high bitrate dts track taking up space.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one soundtrack on this disc, a Dolby Digital 2.0 track at a bitrate of 224 kilobits per second and is a fairly reasonable effort given the dialogue-driven nature of the material. The dialogue itself is directed towards the centre speaker with sound effects and crowd reaction coming mostly from the left and right speaker with some interaction from the rears.

    The dialogue was precise and easy to understand with no syncing errors noted, except by the parrot and some of the special effects sounds being late, for which the sound guy was sacked, several times!

    There is no music in this stage show except for the opening and closing credits, and that is taken from the original series anyway.

    A bit of a surprise on this disc was that some surround activity was noted. Although listed as a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, but without any obvious surround encoding flag, some audience laughter and applause can be heard emanating from the surround channels at infrequent intervals. It added marginally to the overall ambience.

    The subwoofer was inactive throughout.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio & Animation

    There is no Region 1 equivalent to this disc, although it is available in Region 2 (as you would expect) but the specifications look identical. Given this, I would have no doubt that price would be the biggest contributing factor and given the relative prices, the Region 4 local product would seem to be the best bet at this time.

    Another in the series from the creators of The Young Ones, Bottom is more of an acquired taste for most so this is probably strictly for the fans. Still, it's nice to see more of this type of material available on DVD and hopefully the trend will continue.

    Not as visually pleasing as the other three discs overall, this has the look of overcooked VHS about it. Still, it is watchable, without being brilliant and it won't deteriorate over time.

    The audio is more than sufficient for the video with the material being dialogue-driven.

    This is released entirely without extras

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall