Long before Alexander Payne's pair of hapless wine connoisseurs in 'Sideways', there was Brendan and Manny's house-sitting and partaking of the remortgage price wine-cellar collection they were not supposed to touch.
When Manny finds he can no longer tolerate the squalor of the accommodation behind the shop he shares with Bernard, perfectly epitomised by the slice of toast stuck to the ceiling and the moving takeaway box with rodent inside, he confronts our acerbic Irishman, labelling him 'a filth wizard, friend only to the pig and the rat'.
In this third episode, Bailey is finally given some of the better material to work with, and he perfectly demonstrates his comedy talent when he subsequently calls on the service of a cleaning company, aptly named 'Anall Cleaning'. Aside from holding up the phone, as this reviewer's children would, to show them the state of the room, Manny uproariously sums up how badly he needs their services by relating how he is eating scrambled egg out of a shoe with a comb. Finally, there is the fantastic piece of comic timing in how Bailey delivers the one-sided dialogue in negotiating the time the cleaners can attend - 'I really must insist you send someone immediately...alright later today...alright tomorrow then, but first thing tomorrow...alright first thing after lunch, but just after lunch...alright six o'clock'.
Enter the brilliant Kevin Eldon playing the decidedly creepy cleaner conducting an OTT tour of the premises with a dictaphone, recording the gory details such as 'north ceiling corner...containing a number of deceased arachnids...with beans'. Moran and Linehan seem to take great relish in creating secondary characters which test the audience's acceptance levels to the highest levels in the best tradition of 'cringe humour'. Firstly, Eldon's cleaner appears to get some sexual gratification out of any opportunity to whisper in hushed, sensual tones, any expression denoting 'dirt' or 'filth'. Secondly, we have Fran's decidedly insipid dinner-date, who, aside from not drinking, has the restaurant play his own mix-tape. Fran has her first indication that her date may not be interested in her or any other woman, commencing hilariously with actor, Mark Aiken, 'owning' the snap head movements in time to Shirley Bassey's 'Big Spender'. This is soon followed by Fran witnessing his longingly eyeing up of the waiter's derrière, acknowledging both his stint in the navy and his high frequency of calls to his mother which he considers 'normal', before being left in no doubt when she asks: 'What have all these people got in common? Elton John, Ian McKellen, and Jean Paul Gautier?, to which his telling response is that 'they're all fabulous.'
Linehan has frequently made it clear that in his opinion, comedy purely restricted to quips in dialogue may as well have been produced for radio. Therefore, he has always made room for sight gags, and this episode has its share. The two best concern Bernard's displeasure at the cleaner having been contacted at all. Having just declared that the state of the apartment wasn't that bad, Bernard in taking a sip of tea lifts an adhered mug and side-table as one. Secondly, when Eldon's character is confronted over his damning claims of uncleanliness, a close-up of a pristine white gloved finger is followed by a soiled one simply after a quick swipe of the cleaner's finger through thin air.
When approached by Moran to help improve the draft episodes the latter had been putting together for 'Black Books', Linehan had noted that there was a lack of cohesive plot development, so that the material was more akin to a sketch show. This episode, perhaps the best in the series' run of three seasons, amply demonstrates his contribution in providing an overarching structure, whereby layers of individual comedic moments build towards a hilarious crescendo. Here, the opening of an explanatory preamble behind the miraculous discovery of grapes grown on a rose-bush, thereby producing a 'vintage' worthy of no other than His Holiness the Pope's pleasure, inexorably leads through the bungling of our protagonists to a 'priceless' ending.
From the moment Manny completely gets our ill-fated house-owners instructions as to which bottles within his wine-cellar are to be touched and which not, and the particular importance of the one 'vintage' referred to above, the audience have that gleeful 'hand over mouth' realisation of our characters' impending blunder. In a great scene, our 'sh#*-faced' sommeliers attest to the quality of the said 'tipple', whilst the monetary value of how much they have drunk totals up before the audience's eyes. Constructing another wonderful layer of humour, once their mistake has been realised, our writers include a series of injuries Manny endures, leading him to appear 'Igor-like' to Bernard's Frankenstein as they farcically attempt to add a series of ingredients to replenish the empty bottle.
Finally, we get to the comedy 'callback' final scene, where Bernard, declaring 'Oh God' as the date on his newspaper reminds him it is his birthday, fails to 'pick up' on its headline story that our hapless wine-cellar owner has been arrested for poisoning the Pope with Bernard & Manny's bastardised concoction. A brilliant ending.
When Manny finds he can no longer tolerate the squalor of the accommodation behind the shop he shares with Bernard, perfectly epitomised by the slice of toast stuck to the ceiling and the moving takeaway box with rodent inside, he confronts our acerbic Irishman, labelling him 'a filth wizard, friend only to the pig and the rat'.
In this third episode, Bailey is finally given some of the better material to work with, and he perfectly demonstrates his comedy talent when he subsequently calls on the service of a cleaning company, aptly named 'Anall Cleaning'. Aside from holding up the phone, as this reviewer's children would, to show them the state of the room, Manny uproariously sums up how badly he needs their services by relating how he is eating scrambled egg out of a shoe with a comb. Finally, there is the fantastic piece of comic timing in how Bailey delivers the one-sided dialogue in negotiating the time the cleaners can attend - 'I really must insist you send someone immediately...alright later today...alright tomorrow then, but first thing tomorrow...alright first thing after lunch, but just after lunch...alright six o'clock'.
Enter the brilliant Kevin Eldon playing the decidedly creepy cleaner conducting an OTT tour of the premises with a dictaphone, recording the gory details such as 'north ceiling corner...containing a number of deceased arachnids...with beans'. Moran and Linehan seem to take great relish in creating secondary characters which test the audience's acceptance levels to the highest levels in the best tradition of 'cringe humour'. Firstly, Eldon's cleaner appears to get some sexual gratification out of any opportunity to whisper in hushed, sensual tones, any expression denoting 'dirt' or 'filth'. Secondly, we have Fran's decidedly insipid dinner-date, who, aside from not drinking, has the restaurant play his own mix-tape. Fran has her first indication that her date may not be interested in her or any other woman, commencing hilariously with actor, Mark Aiken, 'owning' the snap head movements in time to Shirley Bassey's 'Big Spender'. This is soon followed by Fran witnessing his longingly eyeing up of the waiter's derrière, acknowledging both his stint in the navy and his high frequency of calls to his mother which he considers 'normal', before being left in no doubt when she asks: 'What have all these people got in common? Elton John, Ian McKellen, and Jean Paul Gautier?, to which his telling response is that 'they're all fabulous.'
Linehan has frequently made it clear that in his opinion, comedy purely restricted to quips in dialogue may as well have been produced for radio. Therefore, he has always made room for sight gags, and this episode has its share. The two best concern Bernard's displeasure at the cleaner having been contacted at all. Having just declared that the state of the apartment wasn't that bad, Bernard in taking a sip of tea lifts an adhered mug and side-table as one. Secondly, when Eldon's character is confronted over his damning claims of uncleanliness, a close-up of a pristine white gloved finger is followed by a soiled one simply after a quick swipe of the cleaner's finger through thin air.
When approached by Moran to help improve the draft episodes the latter had been putting together for 'Black Books', Linehan had noted that there was a lack of cohesive plot development, so that the material was more akin to a sketch show. This episode, perhaps the best in the series' run of three seasons, amply demonstrates his contribution in providing an overarching structure, whereby layers of individual comedic moments build towards a hilarious crescendo. Here, the opening of an explanatory preamble behind the miraculous discovery of grapes grown on a rose-bush, thereby producing a 'vintage' worthy of no other than His Holiness the Pope's pleasure, inexorably leads through the bungling of our protagonists to a 'priceless' ending.
From the moment Manny completely gets our ill-fated house-owners instructions as to which bottles within his wine-cellar are to be touched and which not, and the particular importance of the one 'vintage' referred to above, the audience have that gleeful 'hand over mouth' realisation of our characters' impending blunder. In a great scene, our 'sh#*-faced' sommeliers attest to the quality of the said 'tipple', whilst the monetary value of how much they have drunk totals up before the audience's eyes. Constructing another wonderful layer of humour, once their mistake has been realised, our writers include a series of injuries Manny endures, leading him to appear 'Igor-like' to Bernard's Frankenstein as they farcically attempt to add a series of ingredients to replenish the empty bottle.
Finally, we get to the comedy 'callback' final scene, where Bernard, declaring 'Oh God' as the date on his newspaper reminds him it is his birthday, fails to 'pick up' on its headline story that our hapless wine-cellar owner has been arrested for poisoning the Pope with Bernard & Manny's bastardised concoction. A brilliant ending.
