"Actor: Sam Cadman"

• Trigger Happy TV - Best Of Series 1 | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £5.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (66.78%)   |  RRP £9.99

  First shown by Channel 4 at the beginning of 2000, Trigger Happy TV is one of those hidden-camera shows that plays pranks on the unsuspecting public. The brainchild of writer-performer Dom Jolly and his co-director Sam Cadman, it's a beguiling selection of endearingly daft scenes triggered by the admirably straight-faced Jolly (an inappropriate name if ever there was one). His characters include, among many others, a traffic warden who ticks off street cleaners for parking their carts on double-yellow lines; a business man who produces a three-foot-long mobile phone and bellows loudly into the handset; and an incompetent secret-service agent who sidles up to people on park benches, slipping them cryptic messages. Unlike the elaborate ruses of other hidden-camera shows, the best gags here are decidedly low-tech and simple: Jolly's attempt to interact with a stuffed dog he's taken for a "walk" in the park, much to bemusement of passing joggers, is fairly typical of the programme's mix of deadpan humour and surreal visuals--less Beadle's About, more absurdist street theatre. And instead of relying on a laugh track to set the mood, the show has a surprisingly eclectic, even at times strangely mellow and introspective, soundtrack from such acts as The Happy Mondays, Elastica and the Stereophonics. While some of the recurring gags were beginning to flag by the end of the series, the beauty of this compilation is that it features only the strongest material. However, we won't get a chance to see the prank Jolly played on Bill Wyman, who objected when it was first screened on television. Wyman might not get Jolly's impish brand of humour. But this fresh and entertaining compilation gives the rest of us a chance to sample it for ourselves. --Edward Lawrenson

• Trigger Happy TV - Series 2 | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Prankster Dom Joly adds a marvellously surreal edge to the hidden camera show in this, his second collection of highlights from Trigger Happy TV, all of which are once again set to a great soundtrack of downbeat anthems. Joly not only waylays unsuspecting members of the public and minor celebrities, he subjects them to any number of odd or downright bizarre scenarios. Among many other gems here we have the millionth customer at the sex shop, the MI6 recruiting officer whose potential recruitee is frighteningly willing to become an assassin, the infuriating traffic warden ("You can't park here"), the workmen who eat and sleep in the middle of the street, the cultured punk, the obvious burglar, the park warden who eats all the birds, and the ice cream man who is incapable of serving anything. Best of all, perhaps, are the creature features: the snail literally crawling across the zebra crossing, the vain gorilla-gram, not to mention sundry sadistic squirrels, dangerous dogs and randy rabbits. Oh yes, and there's still that guy with the huge mobile phone, though it must be increasingly hard for Joly to find anyone who doesn't know this character by now. Trigger Happy TV gamely exploits the British public's unwillingness to confront strangers, but it also hearteningly demonstrates their innate politeness when placed in awkward situations. In how many other countries could he approach people in the street to insult and bemuse them without running a serious risk of assault? On the DVD: The disc has an excellent, irreverent commentary from Joly and producer Sam Cadman, who talk about the difficulties of filming, chat to people on their mobile phones and munch snacks from the Abbey Road studio canteen. There's also the excruciating stand-up routine Joly did pseudonymously at The Comedy Store, which if nothing else proves he's got no shame at all. --Mark Walker

• Trigger Happy TV - Series 3 | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £4.60   |  Saving you £5.39 (117.17%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Trigger Happy TV 3 is another compilation from the cult late night Channel 4 comedy that turbo-charged the old Candid Camera format with a cool rock soundtrack for the MTV generation. While the show itself could become repetitive, the 42 minutes of highlights distilled into the main feature here are frequently hilarious. See public prankster Dom Joly wrestle a giant badger in the woods, enjoy the office populated entirely by people dressed as bears and collapse with laugher at the most surreal estate agent scenario in the world. From a terribly insecure policeman to the street guide who doesn't know the location of anything, Joly's nerve at pulling off some of these gags is breathtaking. The supporting feature is a half-hour spoof biography of Joly made to introduce Trigger Happy TV to American audiences. Deadpan in the extreme, it sends up the fly-on-the-wall genre and celebrity interview with uncomfortably accurate wit. That's not the end, because the presentation makes the line between programme and extras largely irrelevant, so read on to see what else is... On the DVD: Trigger Happy TV 3 can simply be played straight through so that everything on the disc makes a 90-minute pseudo feature, or individual sections can be selected as extras. There are 14 mostly worthwhile unseen clips, three "Bad Rabbit Jokes" (and they are bad), the three "Worst Ideas Ever" (they are), "Brushes with the Law" (which was bound to happen with such stunts as White Van Man's road rage), and four hugely entertaining previously unseen Celebrity Interviews with Hanif Kureishi, Bret Easton Ellis, Uri Geller and Alan Titchmarsh. The commentary track by Joly and Sam Cadman rambles with entertaining irrelevance from a deaf George Martin producing their recording at Studio 2, Abbey Road, to rather more believable recollections of being arrested in Belgium. --Gary S Dalkin

• We Know Where You Live | DVD | (03/12/2001) from £4.96   |  Saving you £11.03 (222.38%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Ever since the comedy greats stepped beyond the fringe for The Secret Policemen's Ball the annual Amnesty International concert has been one of the highlights of the comedy circuit. 2001's offering was called We Know Where You Live and let's face it, where else are you going to see the UK's top comedians and pop acts on one stage? Compeered by the "surreal stylings" of Eddie Izzard, this compilation of the night's highlights includes a new version of the classic "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch with Eddie, Harry Enfield, Vic Reeves and Alan Rickman. Rickman stubbornly sticks to the script while all around him improvise. There is also a great performance from Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse as the Self-Righteous Brothers and the Goodness Gracious Me team going out for "an English". As well as the comedy there are live performances from Tom Jones, Badly Drawn Boy and the Stereophonics, which seem rather abrupt and heavily edited. Some of the material is quite old, though--any fans of Izzard will already have seen him do the Star Trek phaser sketch where he talks about the other settings, other than stun and kill! On the DVD: What really makes this worth the price (apart from supporting a very worthwhile charity) is the extra footage. As well as some more performance stuff, including Phil impersonating Eddie Izzard which is frighteningly spot on, there is back stage material and a news report following the Amnesty bus round London. Buy it, because other wise you might get Eddie round your house! --Kristen Bowditch

• Trigger Happy TV The Collection | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Prankster Dom Joly adds a marvellously surreal edge to the hidden camera show in Trigger Happy TV, all of whose episodes are set to a great soundtrack of downbeat anthems. Joly not only waylays unsuspecting members of the public and minor celebrities, he subjects them to any number of odd or downright bizarre scenarios. Among many other gems here we have the millionth customer at the sex shop, the MI6 recruiting officer whose potential recruitee is frighteningly willing to become an assassin, the infuriating traffic warden ("You can't park here"), the workmen who eat and sleep in the middle of the street, the cultured punk, the obvious burglar, the park warden who eats all the birds, and the ice cream man who is incapable of serving anything. Best of all, perhaps, are the creature features: the snail literally crawling across the zebra crossing, the vain gorilla-gram, not to mention sundry sadistic squirrels, dangerous dogs and randy rabbits. Oh yes, and there's still that guy with the huge mobile phone, though it must have been increasingly hard for Joly to find anyone who didn't know that character already. Trigger Happy TV gamely exploits the British public's unwillingness to confront strangers, but it also hearteningly demonstrates their innate politeness when placed in awkward situations. In how many other countries could he approach people in the street to insult and bemuse them without running a serious risk of assault? --Mark Walker