Alan B'Stard MP is back for another year of schemes and machinations, whether it be staging his own shooting, manipulating the North Sea oil market, defending his position as "the most right wing MP in the House of Commons", stealing charity boxes or plotting to murder Gorbachev and re-institute the Cold War, there's pretty much nothing B'Stard won't do if he sees an opportunity to make a profit, or to kick someone else, or preferably both.
Alternately aided and undermined by his simple-minded fellow MP Sir Piers Fletcher-Dervish and by his wife Sarah - who is just as ruthless and mercenary as Alan himself - B'Stard connives, contrives and just plain cons his way through seven episodes here, as well as the extra-long "Who Shot Alan B'Stard?" special, which IMDB counts as part of season 2, but is on the season 3 disc in this collection.
Overall, this season is much the same in content and humour and those that came before, though the relationship between Alan and Sarah shifts quite noticeably here. She's been implacably antagonistic to him in previous seasons but in this one she's sometimes his accomplice. While the shift feels a little jarring at times, and is rather abrupt, I actually really like the new dynamic between the characters and think some of the show's best moments come from the pair of them scheming together even as they would cheerfully knife each other in the back.
The New Statesman will be too absurd for some tastes, but if you're at all a fan of any of Rik Mayall's other comedy, it should be right up your alley.
No comments:
Post a Comment