Review of Swiss Toni

Introduction

Swiss Toni is another of the spin off series from The Fast Show. The character was originally created by Bob Mortimer and Charlie Higson, for use in one of the Reeves & Mortimer shows, as Charlie Higson was also working with them, as well as with Paul Whitehouse writing for Harry Enfield and then creating The Fast Show.

The basic premise of Swiss is that he is a second hand car dealer, who compares everything in life to making love to a beautiful woman. Every sketch he appears in during the Fast Show brings another comparison. But can this character be further fleshed out? Can he last for around 16 episodes of 30 minute sit-com?

Video

A pretty standard 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, as first broadcast, and as you would expect from a modern TV show. Nothing wrong from a technical point of view, all looks ok. There`s nothing groundbreaking on screen, but it is interesting to note the difference between the two series. Series 2 has a much less flashy set, a creative decision taken after the first series aired.

Audio

A DD2.0 stereo soundtrack, again as first broadcast, and again perfectly fine technically.

Features

On disc one there are out-takes from the first series. These are pretty funny.

On disc two there are further out-takes, this time from the first half of the second series.

On disc three there are even more out-takes, as well as a behind the scenes "making of" style documentary, and a small feature called "Finding Paul".

I`ll just talk about the "making of" documentary, as it has some interesting stuff, including Paul Whitehouse being very rude about David Walliams (and possibly not joking), as well as a mini interview with Paul & Charlie in a dressing room during filming. It`s similar in style to those found on the Little Britain DVDs, and given its the same person behind the camera, this may come as no surprise.

Conclusion

You know, reviewing a DVD is very much like making love to a beautiful woman. You get all excited as it comes into your house. You carefully remove its protective layers. You press all the right buttons to get it going, then sit back and enjoy.

See, that`s how easy it is to do a Swiss Toni style comparison. Swiss Toni is an ideal character for a Fast Show sketch as he comes on, does the same thing every week and then goes away again.

But it doesn`t really work when stretched to a thirty minute episode. Swiss is actually the least interesting character in the show. Geoff (played by Simon Day) is probably the best written character, despite seeming to just be a stereotypical drunkard. Olivia Colman comes in to steal the show for one episode, Tom Baker utterly dominates the first episode, Mark Heap plays one of his trademark loonies and Paul Whitehouse guests too.

There are funny bits (Charlie Higson shows off his Bond knowledge with a series of puns in one episode), and everyone working on the show is enjoying themselves and trying hard. It just doesn`t really work as a longer format. There are a couple of good ideas (e.g. same story told from 4 different viewpoints) but 16 episodes of it is just too much.

Fast Show fans may find some enjoyment, but at the end of the day it is really just an average sitcom with an already familiar character.