Let the Blood Run Free

Matron: "Happy, happy, joy, joy.... Oooohhh, my beloved Administrator's office"

If you like pantomime ("Oh yes we do!!" "Oh no we don't!!"), comedy improv, student review theatre, or - as a previous reviewer astutely pointed out - Bottom (or the Young Ones), Let the Blood Run Free is well worth your time to track down.

Every minute is packed with gags: slapstick, gore, visual gags, crap puns, and some joyous Australian slang. "You dribbling warpo!!"

Now that S02 has been released on DVD, I have finally managed to purchase and watch all 26 episodes in the order in which they were made.

Back in the mid-90s, Channel 4 in the UK used to broadcast this show to the post-pub crowd in the wee small hours of Friday and Saturday nights. They also used to constantly dick about with the times, making it very difficult to watch this show on a regular basis. As a result, I always assumed I'd missed an episode or two when I used to catch it and the plot seemed to have veered off in bizarre tangents.

Thanks to the miracle of DVDs, I now understand that this was entirely intentional on the part of the scriptwriters. Sorry, Channel 4.

Although a while since watching this series I thought it might be worth while to note that the show was often made the week it was broadcast. At the end of every episode, a phone poll would be made in regards to the cliffhanger (Would Matron Dorothy Conniving-Bitch survive the fall from the building?)

This series was never meant to be taken seriously (obviously) but showed a great deal of fun by the creators. I only wonder how people seeing it in repeats would take it. Half the fun was the vote in polls.

A brilliant example of meta-fiction, with many a wink to the camera...and loads of gore (hilariously fake). This spoof of hospital soaps was a joy to catch VERY late at night on TV. The production itself looks like a high school film class put it together...but that's only the start of the fun!

I loved this. Watched it every Friday night, coming in late from the pub, 12.30am Channel 4. Great characters, great lines.

"Do you like my period costume?"

"You mean you wear that every month?"

See what I mean? The best comedy to come out of Australia. I loved some of the scenes where they asked "Who wrote this?" and would look around for an answer, or we saw the live audience, or the microphone donked someone on the head!

If you ever see it, you'll love it!

It's seems an age ago when I watched this on TV in England, at the time it seemed outrageous in the visual and humour depts! So much blood and gore but it was so funny, it broke a few taboos with its humour and I'm gonna have to dig it out and watch it all again!