The Goodies: At Last, Back For More, Again review (DVD) ★★★★

Forty years? Really? Is it REALLY 40 years since The Goodies burst onto our TV screens – in black-and-white! – riding their trandem bike, bickering with each other and fully prepared to do anything, anytime, anywhere?

When I was but a wee lad in Australia, The Goodies were rarely off our TV screens – and that was a very good thing indeed. A great think, even; nay, a wonderful thing. I have many, many fond memories of sitting in front of the telly and laughing myself silly at the antics of these three lovable Pommy blokes and their zany, slapstick ways. Australians, of course, need no introduction to The Goodies, but for the rest of you – particularly you in the UK, where the show was made (for the BBC) back in the 1970s, but was rarely screened again – here's a little bit of background ...

The Goodies grew out of the Cambrige and Oxford university revues of the 1960s, along with the Monty Python gang – in fact, members of both groups had previously worked together on television. The premise for The Goodies was simple, but very clever: a blend of sketch comedy and sitcom, about three men, named after the actors who played them, who were available for any job whatsoever – anything, anytime, anywhere. Meaning that, much like Doctor Who, there were no restrictions at all – each episode of the show could go anywhere that the guys' imaginations took them. Surreal, slapstick, satirical, musical and topical, The Goodies was always never less than hilarious. And very, very smart. The guys did nine series for the BBC, and one for ITV, before calling it a day in 1982.

The Goodies: At Last, Back For More, Again is the fourth DVD collection to be released by Network. It's a collection of eight epsiodes from various series of the show's BBC run. Disc One has Cecily, The Music Lovers, The New Office, and The Goodies Rule, OK?; Disc Two has Camelot, It Might As Well Be String, 2001 And A Bit, and Royal Command. The standout episode among the eight here is The Goodies Rule, OK? – an hour-long special that blends music with sharp political satire. It involves a puppet government (made up of actual puppets!) that outlaws fun of any kind. This episode was pretty prescient – it predicted a coalition government more than 30 years before the UK actually got one for the first time. Also pretty wonderful is It Might As Well Be String, which lovingly takes the mickey out of the advertising industry. But the great thing about The Goodies is that, in roughly 70 episodes spanning a dozen years, not one of them is a stinker.