Alistair McGowan’s Football Backchat: The Highlights

• Cert:
• Cat.no: 9021039
• Running time: 67 minutes
• Year: 2001
• Pressing: 2001
• Region(s): 0, PAL
• Chapters: 18
• Sound: Stereo
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: None
• Fullscreen: 4:3
• 16:9-Enhanced: No
• Macrovision: Yes
• Disc Format: DVD 5
• Price: £17.99
• Extras: None

Director:

Rick Thomas

Producer:

Screenplay:

Music:

Voices:

Alistair McGowan is an impressionist who, before his recent success on BBC1 – Alistair McGowan’s Big Impression, turned up on various shows on various channels to do the various voices of various celebrities.

Comprising of around half of each of the previously-released videos, Football Backchat and Football Backchat: The Second Leg, the man teams up with his female BBC co-star Ronni Ancona – when the time is required for a female voice – and combines one of his favourite pasttimes with his craft by rewriting the script from real-life footage of interviews with football heroes or altering the tone of other incidents to suit.

The chapters segregate the programme into groups of sketches starting with the one by which the chapter is headed, examples including “Dean’s Tongue”, “Jimmy Hill & the ‘wooshy top'” and “Euro 96 Tour”.

Des Lynam?

Presented in 4:3 fullscreen, the quality of the print is fine and there’s nothing you wouldn’t expect to be present. The sound is in stereo, but it’s just plain dialogue so no problems there either.

The disc contains 18 chapters, no subtitles and the menus contain footage and sound from the programme.

Sadly there’s no extras and given that it’s not a disc you’re going to watch over and over again, it may be worth a rental first. However, given the amount of space on a DVD, why give us just a compilation of the two videos? Why not put on the whole of both?