Dave Allen – The Best Of [PAL, Region 2, Import]
Rated: PG Format: DVD
Product Details
Actors: Dave Allen
Format: PAL
Language: English
Region: Region 2 (Read more about DVD formats.)
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number of discs: 1
Rated: PG
Parental Guidance Suggested
Run Time: 93 minutes
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
ASIN: B000LLN2HG
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,817 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
#124147 in Movies & TV > DVD
Classic British/Irish raconteur/comedian
By Amazon Customer on February 24, 2007
Format: DVD
If you haven’t discovered the late Dave Allen, check this DVD out. You’ll need a Region 2 DVD player (it won’t play on most U.S. players). Since I’ve run into this repeatedly (being an ex-pat Brit with relatives still overseas) I solved this by letting one of my computer DVD drives be a Region 2 drive, which you can accomplish when you first buy a computer as the drive will eventually become a fixed Region 2 drive (it’s not complicated, the directions come up automatically when you play the DVD).
Dave Allen was an institution. He did TV specials every year or so in Britain in the 1970s and ’80s where he’d sit in a spotlit leather chair on stage and share the wit and story-telling ability that made him a unique raconteur. In later years, he dropped the trademark cigarette and glass of booze that he also had on stage throughout the hour or so specials. He avoided over-exposure, appearing just frequently enough to retain a following. Dave Allen was something you looked forward to, appointment television because it was a rarity.
His origins were Irish, and his wit and world-view was uniquely Irish, too. He pontificated about sex, the Irish, God, smoking, life, death, etc., etc.
What makes “The Best of Dave Allen” a particular treat — aside from just getting to see some of his best stuff — is to watch how he aged and how dress style, haircuts and BBC stage sets changed over the years.
But the real joy is that dry Irish humor. A touch of self-deprecation, a dash of blasphemy, a trace of (sometimes dated) edginess, a smidgen of willfulness, a slight smirk, a sense of a joke shared between the comedian and the audience (in the nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know-wot-I-mean? vein) and almost always a great payoff.
I’m not sure how — or if — Dave Allen played in the States. The humor might be culturally specific to a degree that it doesn’t translate well. And it certainly might offend some American sensibilities. But Dave Allen was one of the greats, and this is a good collection.
