Revolver

One can only wonder how this show came about. Was the B.B.C.'s Head Of Comedy so stung by complaints of the 'today's comedies are not as funny as the old ones' type that he commissioned a show intended to prove the opposite?

'Revolver' had a great cast, but alas didn't provide them with decent material. Many of the sketches look like offcuts from 'Big Train'. To give an example: Roy Barraclough looks out of a window and sees a nude man bouncing on a trampoline in his garden. Enraged, he tells his wife to phone the police while he goes out to have a word with the man. No sooner has his wife got through to the police than she hears giggling. Looking out of the window, she sees her husband - also naked - is with the man on the trampoline. Now this would have worked for Mark Heap, but not Roy Barraclough.

The final result was a strange combination of the best of yesterday's comedy combined with the worst of today's. Don't blame the cast - the scriptwriters should have been shot with a revolver!

Some great ideas, but all somehow a bit lame in their execution. Julie Goodyear seeing bizarre things outside her house while she's doing the dusting: potentially very funny. Ms Goodyear gives a decent enough performance. It must have been the direction which failed, and showed a total lack of comic timing.

Honor Blackman raises a grin or two, as a selfish granny. Again, she's fine. The script is okay (but not very original, and not really pushing the cast to their fullest capabilities), and it really must be the director's fault that the whole thing falls flat.

Melvyn Hayes's sketches are very poor and, he seems an bit out-of-place. Gorden Kaye's sketches are a nice idea, but little more than that. Theoretically they're okay, but practically they're disappointing. John Inman and Nicholas Smith suffer just as badly.

Leslie Phillips only appears for a couple of moments here-and-there, and really shouldn't have bothered because he's not given anything to do.

This was trumpeted as seeing "old comedians doing up-to-date new comedy", and making these old faces trendy again. This seems a rather patronising approach, suggesting that employing these old-timers is an act of charity. The actors involved are 120% better than the material they are given here.

Revolver absolutely and completely fails, and is a huge disappointment. The BBC obviously feels the same, as they scheduled it for 11.30pm!

It wasn`t until I came to this site to review REVOLVER that I found out that the series I`d just seen had been a follow up to a series from 2001 . I don`t recall seeing the first series . Or maybe I did . You see that`s the problem with REVOLVER - It`s truly unmemorable

REVOLVER is a comedy sketch show done in a highly surreal manner with actors best known from sit-coms in the 1970s , actors like Roy Barraclough , Stephen Lewis and John Inman . Unlike JAM the surreal sketch show from Chris Morris the jokes themself aren`t in any way offensive but they`re also very unfunny .

Example : Woman stands in park shouting " Here boy here fetch " . Man appears and says " I`ve got a name you know " Don`t you get it ? The audience expect the woman is talking to a dog but she`s talking to her husband . Try not to laugh - I know I didn`t

Or this example : Man is seen pushing massive boulder along street . He is clearly dead on his feet from the physical ordeal . He staggers to a door and rings the bell and a woman answers

Man : I was just passing through the area and was wondering if you were interested in buying a giant boulder ?

Woman : Not today thank you

If anyone understood that " joke " can they send me a private message explaining it please ?

And one last point . If you`ve got a sketch featuring two hetrosexual men fighting over a women do you honestly believe Melvyn Hayes and Lionel Blair are well cast as the protagonists ?

Mediocre comic actors demonstrate why they should remain in retierment

although they are handicapped by awful writing. If you want a fun game with friends, watch "revolver" with a gang of friends and compete with each other to guess the sketches punchline first, 2 out of 3 times you will be spot on i garentee you!

Although it's great to see the British Comedy stars of long ago including Melvin Hayes,Nicholas Smith,John Inman,Leslie philips and many others, But the scketches they appear in are unfunny in the extreme,They don't even make me smile let alone make me roll around on the floor with my sides splitting

Verdict:- The forgotten stars deserve better than this tripe

my rating 6/10 (and i'm being kind)