Directors Commentary

With just one man talking over old television programmes, neither the picture, nor the sound, need be anything to write home about. It's all as it should be.

The lack of subtitles is a disappointment. Not only does it preclude a section of society from enjoying the excellent programme, but without them it makes it hard for everyone else to understand Rob Brydon's commentary over the top of the original "Peter De Lane" commentary.

Whilst a DVD commentary originally sounds like a great idea, in the end it doesn't work. When Brydon refers to "this joke...", the viewer can have no idea as to which joke he means.

Brydon is usually amusing and interesting, but his DVD commentary is a real chore to listen to. Towards the end, he declares that he thinks the commentary-on-a-commentary is a bad idea and that he didn't want to do it. He should have fought harder. Thankfully, the commentary is only available on two of the 15 minute segments.

Even more dire is Behind The Scenes. Rather than having any sort of focus, narration or anyone speaking to camera, explaining what's going on, it's little more than a camera pointed at people working, left to run and then shoved onto the DVD.

You can see the process they went through to create the programme within the first five minutes and then are left with a further 20 of exactly the same.

The prize for worst extra - and very possibly of all time - is Peter's Party. It's a rap song. There's no explanation as to why De Lane would be doing such a thing and it's not funny as a spoof, because it's so bad.

Thankfully, the rest of the extras are much better. The deleted scenes are as good as the finished episodes. They seem not to have been included because they wouldn't fit, rather than because they weren't good enough. Peter's take of Jonathan Ross's speech impediment is one I intend to repeat frequently!

The pilot episode, a commentary on an episode of Upstairs Downstairs, is equally welcome. It's not as polished as the subsequent ones, but still has plenty of funny moments. Seeing the progression from the pilot to the broadcast adds to the interest.

For once a photo gallery is a good extra. Rather than a selection of photos from behind the scenes, these are pictures of Peter De Lane's family and plethora of wives, complete with Peter talking us through them. It's very funny.

As a DVD package, this is a mixed bag. Stick to the good extras and the episodes themselves and hope that those responsible for the bad ones have learnt their lesson.