The Brittas Empire Series 6 - DVD Review

A review by DVD enthusiast Chris Orton

Quite how "The Brittas Empire" managed to reach seven series is rather puzzling. In its heyday of the early 1990s it was never the greatest of sit-coms, but by the time that it had finally died a death in 1997 it had racked up an incredible 52 episodes - one for every week of the year. If you played one episode per week, by the sixth season, you would be up to the start of October and into November -and looking forward to a new year, free from such inane comedy. By now things are starting to get a bit... well, rubbish to be honest. The plots have started to become even less grounded in reality that they were previously, and it is easy to see why the series didn't last much longer than this. The creators of the series Andrew Norris and Richard Fegen had by this point given up scripting duties and were on board to keep an eye of the show and to provide storylines for other scribes to flesh out into full episodes. And it shows, because these installments are just not very good at all. Even though Fegen and Norris had walked the plank, Director and Producer Mike Stephens remained on board the ship however to steer the programme through the choppy waters of its death throes.

The first episode deals with the miraculous return to life of the recently deceased Whitbury Newtown Leisure Centre manager, Gordon Brittas. After being crushed to death by a falling water tank he had been amazingly reconstructed by top surgeons in a Swiss hospital and suddenly finds that he now has superhuman strength, much to the amazement of his wife and the leisure centre staff, but to the delight of his devoted acolyte Colin. This theme is exploited for the opening installment of the series and swiftly forgotten about by the time the second episode starts. After this Brittas is back to his usual non-super-strong self. In spite of his reconstruction the man is still the infuriating, pedantic jobs-worth that he always was with the Swiss surgeons having neglected to remove the annoyance factor from him. The main plot line of the episode is that Mrs Brittas has spent the life insurance money on an expensive car that ends up being blown up by a bomb in a croquet set. It is that good. A new character is introduced in the shape of Mrs Penny Bidmead who is installed as the manageress of the semi-privatised sauna-solarium complex. Intended to be the archenemy of Brittas, she proves to be nothing of the sort in the end and ultimately becomes a fairly redundant character, as Penny Bidmead does barely nothing in any of the episodes in which she appears, other than cast dagger glances at Brittas every now and again.

The subsequent episodes are, unfortunately, not much better. The second involves Brittas giving one of his frequent lectures, this time on body language. We also find that Colin has somehow discovered a trance-inducing plant that makes him think that aliens have landed on the roof of the leisure centre, when in fact it is merely a frozen block of toilet waste from a passing aeroplane. Incredible, eh? The third segment concerns a circus that visits town whose star attraction is a Mr Brittas double. Cue lots of hilarity with mistaken identity and Brittas not having a clue as to what is going on. There is also a man in a comedy bear suit in this one. Episode four is about Brittas's 'Walk for Health' campaign, while the fifth part of the whole sorry saga is about World Peace and Hunger week. The final two episodes include hilarious sequences involving a shark being mistaken for a dolphin (naturally, the only part of the shark that the viewer gets to see is its plastic fin – a whole shark prop would most likely have eaten up the budget) and the laboured attempts of Brittas to have a staff photograph taken. The jokes are contrived and lame, with few of them being strong enough to even raise a titter while the plotlines are thin and perfunctory.

Chris Barrie starred in "The Brittas Empire" at the same time as playing Rimmer in "Red Dwarf". In fact, he was making this programme when he took a break from Season 7 of "Red Dwarf", a series where he was much better served as an actor, despite not being the leading man in it. Red Dwarf, too, was simply a much funnier comedy. Whereas Rimmer came across as being an annoying pedant like Brittas, at least the viewer could have some degree of sympathy for him as he was such a dismal loser. Brittas just comes across as annoying all of the time, and it is hard to enjoy any programme with characters of this nature. Of the rest of the cast Pippa Haywood and Harriet Thorpe appear utterly manic all of the time in their roles as Helen and Carole respectively. Mike Burns’ scabby underling Colin is probably the most memorable of the supporting characters, but the remainder of the team – Gavin, Tim and Linda – are largely forgettable. Gavin and Tim are homosexuals, but thankfully are not presented as comedy camp types a la Mr Humphries. The Brittas Empire requires these more normal people to balance out the sheer over the top-ness of the aforementioned triumvirate of Brittas, Mrs Brittas and Carole.

Picture quality is what you would expect from a BBC sitcom - shot on video the image is perfectly acceptable for the type of programme that this is. The sound is only mono though, which is surprising as the BBC was making most of its programming in stereo by the mid 1990s. The extras on the set are scant, with only a five-minute sequence of out-takes from (bizarrely) the fourth series and a stills gallery present. The two discs are presented in a card digipack, decorated in a garish orangey-red colour scheme, while the animated menu screens feature a 3D recreation of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre with selected quotes from Colin played over them.

The best way to watch this series is on fast forward with the subtitles turned on. It may help you enjoy it a little more as everybody walks around with that strange high-speed walk, which invariably raises more laughs than the content of the programme itself.

See also: Series 6 Guide / Other Brittas DVDs

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