I think that
the duo may have been at their peak with this third series. By this point they
had a sure sense of what distinctively they could achieve with a sketch show,
with less of the aimless drifting that mars the early episodes while not yet
falling into the overindulged celebrity trap that increasingly irritated me
later on. I was in the first year of sixth form when this went out, and I can't
remember any other show being so universally popular, with both fellow pupils
and teachers.
I think that the part that resonated most with my peers was the Star Test Bros interview, probably because of the worthy target (the hapless briefly-popular Goss brothers being both teen-orientated culture and something that we would have all felt was beneath us). Watching it now, I'm mainly interested in the very tight-looking facial prosthetics that the performers have been squashed into. With much of this episode's comedy, I find the details much funnier than the ostensibly amusing scenarios - Saunders' Luke Goss dropping her drumsticks, or the (slightly disturbing) visual effect in Kirsty MacColl and Simon Brint's duet of 'Something Stupid' of both singers’ reflections being superimposed over each other's eyes.
The extended Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? parody is one of the best they did, partly because of the pleasure of recognising their takes of Davis and Crawford, but mostly because the original piece had such a distinctly camp Grand Guignol style that it didn't need to be extended very much to become overly comic. The audience laughter over this filmed piece is a bit of a shame, as overt laughter at certain jokes detracts from the greater subtlety of the whole conception.
The sketch that I (and my parents, who I watched this with in 1990) most enjoyed at the time still strikes me as being the best bit now. Its a scene of an editorial conference between the two refined ladies in charge of a popular mid-market women's magazine, and - Hurray! - for once French and Saunders aren't parodying something else or impersonating other celebrities or doing recurring characters. The skit both celebrates and skewers the vacuity of the magazine ("Sue Lawley on flans? "Too spiky"), bombarding the viewer with closely-observed fine detail of the all-too-convincing magazine, discussed by two well-drawn characters.
I think that the part that resonated most with my peers was the Star Test Bros interview, probably because of the worthy target (the hapless briefly-popular Goss brothers being both teen-orientated culture and something that we would have all felt was beneath us). Watching it now, I'm mainly interested in the very tight-looking facial prosthetics that the performers have been squashed into. With much of this episode's comedy, I find the details much funnier than the ostensibly amusing scenarios - Saunders' Luke Goss dropping her drumsticks, or the (slightly disturbing) visual effect in Kirsty MacColl and Simon Brint's duet of 'Something Stupid' of both singers’ reflections being superimposed over each other's eyes.
The extended Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? parody is one of the best they did, partly because of the pleasure of recognising their takes of Davis and Crawford, but mostly because the original piece had such a distinctly camp Grand Guignol style that it didn't need to be extended very much to become overly comic. The audience laughter over this filmed piece is a bit of a shame, as overt laughter at certain jokes detracts from the greater subtlety of the whole conception.
The sketch that I (and my parents, who I watched this with in 1990) most enjoyed at the time still strikes me as being the best bit now. Its a scene of an editorial conference between the two refined ladies in charge of a popular mid-market women's magazine, and - Hurray! - for once French and Saunders aren't parodying something else or impersonating other celebrities or doing recurring characters. The skit both celebrates and skewers the vacuity of the magazine ("Sue Lawley on flans? "Too spiky"), bombarding the viewer with closely-observed fine detail of the all-too-convincing magazine, discussed by two well-drawn characters.
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