Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)
The Complete First Series

Distributed by
Vision Video

Cert:

Cat.no: 0786062

Running time: 377 minutes

Year: 2000

Pressing: 2001

Region(s): 2, PAL

Chapters: 66 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Languages: English

Subtitles: English

Fullscreen: 4:3

16:9-enhanced: No

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: 2 * DVD 9

Price: £19.99

Extras: On Set With Randall & Hopkirk, Randall & Hopkirk (deleted) outtakes, Music Video

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Directors:

Charlie Higson, Mark Mylod and Rachel Talalay

Producer:

Charlie Higson

Screenplay:

Charlie Higson

Music:

David Arnold and Tim Simenon

Cast:

Marty Hopkirk: Vic Reeves
Jeff Randall: Bob Mortimer
Jeannie Hurst: Emilia Fox
Wyvern: Tom Baker

Some things are better left alone. I never saw the original series of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), but comedians Vic and Bob, aka Vic Reeves - as the dead crime partner Marty Hopkirk - and Bob Mortimer as the alive one, Jeff Randall, saw fit to recreate it along with Fast Show regular Charlie Higson.

Why should they have left it alone? Because it's far from original and far from making much sense or being particularly entertaining even though I did manage to sit through the whole series (the same cannot be said of series 2. I gave it a few minutes but that was enough).

Emilia Fox plays Jeannie Hurst, the wife-to-be of Marty before he died and, since only Jeff can see him, she doesn't know Marty's still around, which leaves the way clear for Jeff to make a play for her. Yes, you can see where this is going. Tom Baker reappears as the increasingly eccentric (or is that just him?) Wyvern, Marty's guide in the world of the dead, helping him out so he can still solve crime and walk amongst the living.

You can tell this series had a high budget given the many guest appearances from the likes of Hugh Laurie, Charles Dance, Steven Berkoff, Martin Clunes, Jessica Stevenson, Paul Whitehouse and screenwriter/producer/co-director Charlie Higson.

It wasn't just the picture that was cut in half!

Marty Hopkirk died unfairly - and so did the anamorphic 16:9 picture in which this TV series was filmed. If it wasn't content by being stretched in a bizarre fashion that has happened to a few BBC dramas in recent years, another being the ill-fated Out of Hours, everyone was given fat heads. In other words, whoever converted the picture make a kingsize cock-up of it.

It looks like they took the 16:9 widescreen picture, chopped off the edges to get the 14:9 less-wide version that you'll see on analogue TV and stretched that out sideways to fill the 16:9 frame. By using your TV's "Just" or "Super Zoom" (or similar) mode, if watching on a widescreen TV, it will just about compensate for most of the irregularities here...