Wezzo's DVD Reviews > Ant and Dec's Saturday Night
Wezzo's DVD Reviews > Music and Special Interest > Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
Main Feature:
This set is a compilation of sketches from the best entertainment show to hit Saturday night in ten years, Saturday Night Takeaway, hosted by Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly. The show won the Best Entertainment Programme award at the National Television Awards earlier this year; and rightfully so.
For those of you not in the know, heres the rundown. Ant and Dec present the show, which includes various regular sketches and features. Here is a rundown of the most popular:
"Little Ant and Dec" (4 sketches on the disc), who are supposedly Ant and Dec's fill-ins for interviews, when the real Ant and Dec "can't be bothered". They are lovingly inncoent, and do their job of asking embarassing questions well. The four sketches with them on the disc include them interviewing Kylie Minogue, The Hamiltons, Coronation Street stars, and Big Ant and Dec themselves.
"Ant and Dec Undercover" (4 sketches on the disc) is also a great section. In it, Ant and Dec are given make-up, plastic faces and odd clothing, and they pretend to be someone totally ridiculous. They almost always succeed. In my opinion these sketches are the most entertaining; the ones on the disc include them as German Pop Idol finalists on "This Morning", auditionees on "American Idol", old men who are going out with much younger women on Lorraine Kelly's section on "GMTV", and finally as Jamaican women who are supposedly actresses for the background on "Emmerdale". Very, very entertaining stuff here - even haters of A&D will enjoy these sections, I'm sure.
"What's Next?" (2 sketches on the disc) is a section of the show where neither Ant or Dec know what's happening next on the show whatsoever - no clues, no ideas, no nothing. This section is again, usually very entertaining, as Ant and dec are often very shocked, distraught or (most often) scared as hell. The two of these on the disc are "The Gorilla Episode", in which Ant and Dec are locked in a cage with some supposedly violent gorillas; and "Bill and Ben" - when the two have to dress up as, you guessed it, Bill and Ben, the flowerpot men.
So far, that's 10 of the 16 chapters in the main section. The other 6 fall into no particular category, so I'll go through them separately.
Firstly, there's a good 3-min intro from Ant and Dec themselves; there's a very short sketch involving the girls of Liberty X, X-Ray Specs and Dec...; 'The Royal Navy', a rather rubbish sketch involving the Navy .. just watch it :); 'The Circus Of Horrors' in which Ant and Dec get involved in a scary circus involving knives, animals and acrobatics; another very short sketch with Tom Jones; and finally, "Mr and Mesmerised", in which they hypnotize someone and asks him to reveal truthfuul answers to questions; whilst later his girlfriend must try and guess the same answers, unhypnotized.
All in all, a very entertaining set; could be longer really, but the 91 minutes isn't bad. 8/10
Packaging:
A typical plastic snapper-case. Holds the disc fairly well, though on mine the disc seems a little loose.. no real complaints here, though. 8/10
Audio:
Stereo, typically average. 5/10
Video:
16:9 Anamorphic, nice job. No grain or edge enhancement either, the programme looks very clear. High-quality stuff, this. 9/10
Price:
I got it from HMV for £16.99. £10-14 is more reasonable really; look harder than I did. 7/10
Extras:
A great collection, though most of them would have fit in with the main presentation.. ah well.
There's around 20 minutes of interview footage; the first 7 focusing on "Ant and Dec Undercover", the next 7 with Little Ant and Dec, and the final 7 with celebrities on the show. Nice addition, there. There's then about 30 minutes of footage from various sections of each show, split into 4 sections:
"Home Run", in which Ant and Dec go live to a public area, eg a bingo hall, or cinema, and tell them that at one of their homes is £2000, which is theirs to keep if they promise to stay in every Saturday night from then on and watch the show. Good bribery! They get 30 seconds to leave the area and run for it; more often than not lots leave, and the lucky person runs,a nd gets to keep the money. Another of my favourite sections, this runs about 15 minutes.
"The Circus Of Horrors" is up next, a showcase for horrific and scary stunts and the like to show their faces. Lasts about 5 minutes.
"Grab The Ads" and "Win The Ads" are what the whole show is based on - winning the prizes from advert breaks on ITV-1. i won't go into detail, but it's not too complicated. Some good, light-hearted fun in these two sections. They total about 10 minutes.
A good 50 minutes of extra stuff there, though most would have gone in the main presentation as I previously stated. Unfortunately there's no subtitles. A good selection though. 8/10
Overall:
A very entertaining DVD all around, with few shortcomings. 8/10
Family-Friendly Rating:
Guidance, due to infrequent mild language and sex refs.
~Wesley Mead, aka Wezzo
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