Bird & Fortune: 2 Johns and a Dinner Party

John Bird and John Fortune have been writing and performing satirical skits since they were at Kings College, Cambridge.  John Bird has been credited with coining the title That Was The Week That Was on which he wrote with such comedy greats as David Frost, Peter Cook and John Cleese.  John Fortune didn't have the same televisual grounding as he was a few years younger but teamed up with John Bird in 1964 for Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life and they worked together on BBC3 and A Series of Bird's with Peter Cook before finding mainstream fame in recent years alongside Rory Bremner. 
 
With Bremner doing his stand up routines, Bird and Fortune became The Long Johns with their interviews where one would interview the other, a politician, military spokesman or Civil Servant who frequently went under the name George Parr. Unbelievably these have been going for 20 years and in recent years they have incorporated a dinner party setting into their act with Pauline McLynn and Frances Barber as their spouses. 
 

  
The Long Johns interviews took topical political events and lampooned them mercilessly by picking apart the sheer idiocy and stupidity at the heart of government policy. The dinner party sketches dwelt on the petty prejudices held by the upper middle classes who are almost completely removed from 'real life' and harbour narrow stereotypical views of everyone who doesn't exist in their tiny social sphere. 
 
This DVD brings a collection of both sets of sketches from the last 3 years together, playing alternately or you can choose to just watch one set or the other.  I've been a fan of Bremner, Bird and Fortune (and the Rory Bremner show before that) since they were broadcast and have fond memories of listening to a Long Johns cassette tape.  It's amazing to think that they are still as sharp and as funny as they were two decades ago with both of them in their 70s. 
 

  
These are two of the great satirists on television of modern times - Private Eye has cornered the market in the post-Punch era when it comes to magazines - and they make terrific viewing and listening as you can put this on and sit back with your eyes closed and get as much enjoyment, though you do miss it when they start giggling and nearly lose it (most notably when John Bird interviews 'Rover' with the two dressed in dog costumes!).  The dinner party scenes aren't as politically cutting, but they are not meant to be, intending more as a social commentary and they are so brilliantly acted that you can't tell how much is scripted or ad-libbed, with the same applying to the Long Johns sketches.

The Disc

 
The Picture
It's a relatively undemanding viewing experience with little in the way of camera movement or editing, particularly in the Long Johns scenes - these are just two men (usually) in suits on swivel chairs talking to one another.  By contrast the dinner party element relies more on clothing, lighting and set dressing and they do have that air of opulence that reinforces the personas the actors put forward.
 
The picture is nice and clear with little in the way of distortion though there is the occasional drag as someone moves quickly forward. 
 
The Sound
The clear Dolby Digital soundtrack is just as it was broadcast and there are good, well written subtitles should you require them. As the bulk of the DVD is just some people talking there is nothing to detract from the dialogue which is easy to hear and presented well. 
 

 
Final Thoughts
 I watched the DVD in one go and, although it is over 3 hours long, the time just flew - when it finished I started on the Long Johns interviews again.  For any fan of their work this is something worth buying and I hope it won't be long before another DVD comes out of the older material dating back to 2001 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. 
 
I would have liked an interview with Bird and Fortune as themselves talking about the genesis of the two projects, their favourite moments and how they have kept going for so long but even so this is a fine DVD for any fan of them, their material or political satire. 

George Parr, thank you very much.