"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Monday, January 13, 2014

The All New Alexei Sayle Show: Series 2, Episode 1 (1995)

 
After my second helping of The All New Alexei Sayle Show, there’s still not much to get excited over.    As sketch comedy goes, it has a very middle-of-the-pack feel, and the stand-up bits are mostly padding with a few good lines in the middle.
 
Again, PC appears in one sketch, which can be found here.  This one has its own intro and title card, which might mean it’ll be recurring.  The sketch is touted as one of many “Drunk in Time” adventures, wherein two sloshed English blokes pop up throughout history after stumbling into some sort of time/space disturbance.
 
PC plays Doug Hatton, one of the two drunks.  He and his inebriated brother-in-arms find themselves at a dinner party where Rasputin is a guest and cyanide is on the menu.  (Rasputin, by the way, is played by Jim Carter, Mr. Carson on Downton Abbey.)
 
While I like it a lot less than the Sherlock Holmes sketch from the previous episode, this is, as before, one of the better sketches in the episode.  I’m tickled by the pair of scientists who are somehow monitoring the drunken historical meddling of the two men; their dialogue is a fun parody of time-travel tropes.
 
PC, for his part, does well enough in a meager role.  He’s not called on to do more than act drunk and dim, and he manages humorously.
 
Accent Watch
 
Northern this time around.  It might be Scouse, but I could just be thinking that because of Alexei Sayle’s Scouse accent.  If the sketch crops up again in the series, I’ll listen for it.
 
Warnings
 
Add in obvious references to copious alcohol use, along with an attempted poisoning.

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