Skip to content
Dom Robinson reviews 
Series 2
PT Video
- Cert:
- Cat.no: PTDVD 8002
- Running time: 135 minutes
- Year: 1992
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 42
- Sound: Dolby Surround (Dolby Digital 2.0)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- 16:9-Enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Pub Quiz, Animated Menus, Out-takes
Director:
- Martin Dennis
Producer:
- Beryl Vertue
Writer:
- Simon Nye
Music:
- Alan Lisk
Cast:
- Gary: Martin Clunes (The Acid House, Carry On Columbus, It’s Good to Talk, The Revengers’ Comedies, The Russia House, Saving Grace, Shakespeare in Love, Staggered, Swing Kids, TV: All at Number 20, Demob, An Evening with Gary Lineker, Have I Got News for You, Hospital!, Hunting Venus, Lord of Misrule, Men Behaving Badly, Men Down Under, Never Come Back, Never Mind the Horrocks, Neville’s Island, No Place Like Home, Over Here, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (2000), Rik Mayall Presents Dancing Queen, Sex ‘n’ Death, Shooting Stars, Suspicion, Touch and Go)
Tony: Neil Morrissey (The Bounty (1984), I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle, Staggered, Up ‘n’ Under, TV: Boon, Dive to Shark City with Neil Morrissey, The Flint Street Nativity, Happy Birthday Shakespeare, Have I Got News for You, Hunting Venus, Jack and the Beanstalk (1998), The Match, Men Behaving Badly, Men Down Under, My Summer With Des, Paris, Roger Roger, Shooting Stars, The Vanishing Man, A Woman’s Guide to Adultery)
Deborah: Leslie Ash (Curse of the Pink Panther, Dead on Time, Murder: Ultimate Grounds for Divorce, Nutcracker, Quadrophenia, Rosie Dixon – Night Nurse, TV: Cat’s Eyes, Driving Force ’86, The Gentle Touch, Haggard, The Happy Apple, Men Behaving Badly, Seconds Out, Shadey, Shooting Stars, Stay Lucky, The Tube)
Dorothy: Caroline Quentin (Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire, Party Party, TV: Don’t Tell Father, An Evening with Gary Lineker, The Innocent, Jonathan Creek, Kiss Me Kate, Men Behaving Badly, Robbie the Reindeer in Hooves of Fire, Up Line, Whose Line is it Anyway?)
George: Ian Lindsay (Food of Love, Little Dorrit, The Tall Guy, TV: Boon, Bramwell, Casualty, Forever Green, The Master, Men Behaving Badly, The Paradise Club)
Anthea: Valerie Minifie (Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair, Firelight, Miss Julie, The Pirates of Penzance, Queen of the Blues, TV: Alas Smith & Jones, A Dark Adapted Eye, Eastenders, A Man For All Seasons, Men Behaving Badly, One Foot in the Grave, Our Friends in the North, Paul Merton in Galton and Simpson’s…Twelve Angry Men, The Racing Game, The Railway Children (2000))
Men Behaving Badly, began life on ITV in 1991 with Harry Enfield and Martin Clunes as Dermot and Gary, two flatmates whose destiny in life is the three ‘B’s : booze, babes and more booze. Gary’s found the love of his life in the long-suffering Dorothy (Caroline Quentin, ex-wife of comedian Paul Merton), although he’s always after more and Dermot’s always on the lookout for his next love…and it always seems to be with Deborah (Leslie Ash).
From series 2 onwards, Neil Morrissey, aka Tony, replaced Harry Enfield as Gary’s flatmate always vying for Deborah’s affections, and since then the programme has gone from strength to strength, moving from ITV to BBC1 from series 3 onwards.
So what’s it all about? Gary and Tony are two flatmates whose aim in life is to drink as much as they can, be as crude as they can, and chat up as many women as they can, although in 99% of all cases, they only manage to fulfil the first two criteria.
Gary is a stressed-out supervisor for a security alarm company, working alongside the over-the-hill homely, cardigan-wearing George (Ian Lindsay) and middle-aged, rather clueless Anthea (Valerie Minifie). Tony (Neil Morrissey), the dim-witted type who’d flit from crap job to crap job to no job at all, depending on where the wind carried him.
Dorothy (Caroline Quentin) is a nurse and still lives with her parents, but spends most time with Gary – whether he likes it or not – and Deborah owns the flat upstairs. Tony would like to spend all of his time up there, but Deborah doesn’t whether Tony likes it or not. Given that her life is an equal mess to Tony’s – she has a VISA bill she can’t pay, negative equity, a feeling of no self-worth and no steady job – they should get on like a house on fire then!
The series was also shipped overseas with a new cast for the American version including Justine Bateman (Family Ties), Rob Schneider (Judge Dredd
, Demolition Man) and Ron Eldard (fireman Shep in series 2 of E.R.). It didn’t take long to get cancelled though as the men didn’t behave particularly badly at all.
Click on each of the following pictures for a sound-bite from that episode!
Tony & GaryAs Harry Enfield left the series, his character Dermot was written out by going on a round-the-world trip with some dodgy girl he met. As a result, Gary needs to find a new flatmate and places an advert in the paper, hoping to find a bloke who will bring in plenty of fresh tottie to their batchelor pad.
However, after a serious of disastrous interviews with complete no-hopers, he gets Tony, who starts breaking things from the moment he arrives. Shortly after he and Debs start flirting around each other and Tony digs out his impressive alarm clock.
Also, there are tough times at work when Gary has to put Anthea in her place – the cupboard.
Rent BoyThat’s what Anthea refers to Tony as, when George says he thinks Gary is too old to be living with another man and she gets the wrong end of the stick, as always. In the video shop, Gary subtley (not!) breaches the subject of thinking that Tony is gay to Dorothy.
Back home, the walls are rocked as Tony plugs in his amplifier and strums the guitar, thus giving Debs the first of many headaches.
How To Dump Your GirlfriendThat’s what Tony wants to do in his six-month relationship with Pat (Debra Beaumont, recently seen in Brookside as the posh girl whose name I’ve forgotten who tried to stop Jacqui Dixon marrying Nathan), although she’s not keen on him shouting out Debs’ name in his sleep. You won’t believe it when you find out how she’s been chucked.
Also in this episode, Gary gets up everyone’s nose with his ultra-complex cleaning rota.
Click on the picture to hear Gary’s thoughts on finishing with an old girlfriends.
Troublesome 12″And very troublesome indeed is Gary’s times ahead when he cashes in on a rare green vinyl 12″ single (possibly Kenny Everett‘s Snot Rap from 1982) of Dorothy’s after Tony shows him a copy of Record Collector magazine. When she gets wind of his plan, she’ll do anything to make him feel guilty before he knows he’s been found out, but he’s more than likely to put his foot right in it when buying a replacement copy.
This episode also sees the first date proper for Tony and Debs. He is trying to be romantic, but after he needs some change to buy something, barman Les questions him rather undelicately.
Going NowhereIn many senses of the word. Tony buys a van that’s on the verge of breaking down and on a shopping trip for the four of them, Gary and Debs end up stuck in a lift together, more through his choice than hers.
After Tony plugs an electric blanket into his van’s power supply, it results in a rather shocking moment.
People Behaving IrritatinglyThat’s what Tony gets when he allows the real odd couple to stay, the girl of the couple being Emma Amos, who co-starred with Neil Morrissey’s ex, Liz Carling in Goodnight Sweetheart, but do you get the feeling they’re overstaying their welcome when the first words out of Gary’s mouth as he enters his office are, “Absolute bastards!”
Later on he has a major rant direct to their faces – then finds out from Tony that as long as they’re all really nice to the pair, there are four free holidays to Spain up for grabs due to some spare tickets. Erm…
Click on the picture to hear Tony’s theory about pants.
Presented in a 4:3 ratio and free of artifacts, the picture looks great and everything you could ever want. It can often be comfortably zoomed in to a fill a widescreen TV without losing anything of importance. The average bitrate is 5.24Mb/s for each episode.
The sound, presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround), comes across as clear as a bell. Obviously, being a TV show free of special FX it isn’t going to be one to test your speakers to the limit, but it’s spot on for what it needs to do.
Extras :
Chapters : There are 7 chapters per episode – making 42 in all – with an onscreen menu decked out like cans of lager in the fridge. In each episode, there’s one apiece for the opening and closing credits with five left for the programme itself, so the five lager cans actually lead to chapters 2-6.
Languages and Subtitles : All the episodes are in English, as you’d expect, but there are no subtitles which is a shame. I’d like to see this rectified for future releases if possible.
And there’s more… : Four Interactive Quizzes are included, in the form of a pub quiz game to test your knowledge of the series. Get it right or wrong and you’ll hear a cry of enthusiasm or jeering in a soundbite from Gary or Tony. Complete the quizzes (3 questions apiece) and you’ll be rewarded with special out-takes.
Menu : The main menu is well-animated and scored, mixing in soundbites from the series with some images, such as the French “BREST” road sign, the lads’ thoughts on Debs and a pair of lightsabres.
Overall, I’ve been waiting for Men Behaving Badly to be released on DVD for ages. It’s one of my favourite TV series and the tapes are getting a bit worn now.
It’d be nice to have a few more extras, even perhaps a running audio commentary from the cast and crew as the out-takes show they all clearly had a lot of fun in making it.
For now though, what’s here is well worth the asking price and it looks and sounds as good as it should.
Series 3 and 4 should also be available by the time you read this, so I’m looking forward to those, but I’d love to also see releases for the Xmas specials from 1997 and 1998’s three-parter “Last Orders”, but this time in anamorphic widescreen and not cropped to 4:3.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL Visit the official website at : Men Behaving Badly.com
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.