The Rutles: All You Need is Cash

If anyone, like me, viewed Eric Idle as one of the more self-effacing members of the Monty Python team and would like to keep it that way, I suggest they don't listen to his commentary track on this disc. He comes across as a professor of smug from Smugsville. It was all his idea, you know, and he took it to the States and got the cash and, oooh look, that's his wife there, and there, and... well, you get the picture. Also, he keeps annoyingly explaining things for an American audience, such as the Pathetique News Reel, and persists in referring to England rather than Britain.

I confess to having a bit of a Neil Innes bias, but, even without that, Idle seems to forget that anyone else had anything to do with the film, until quite a long way through. Shame that the distributor didn't get Innes in to lend a bit of balance and also shed some light on what his inspiration for the various bits of music were.

The picture is fine, though nothing to get excited about. As it is supposed to be a documentary-style piece, it doesn't matter that the colours aren't fantastic, or there is some graining, which is largely down to the age of the film. The sound is mono, which is shame as so much of the humour comes from the soundtrack.

The deleted scenes are strictly for ardent fans, though watching Mick Jagger, I finally understand why in some dim and distant past women found him attractive. It is easy to see why these scenes weren't added, usually because the sound is dodgy.

Eric Idle's introduction sees him readopt his "reporter" persona from the film some 20 years on. The humour, unfortunately, is also caught in a timewarp.

I think, perhaps, that the biggest failing on the disc is a lack of hard-of-hearing subtitles.

Idle hints that more Rutle DVDs may be forthcoming - presumably Can't Buy Me Lunch. Let's hope they see fit to be a bit more all-inclusive next time.