DVD Review: Little Britain - Abroad

The boys from Little Britain travel around the world for this “Christmas special” to cap off their popular UK show. So will the boys be back or is this the end of Little Britain?

The show chronicling a series of nutty Britons ran on the BBC from 2003 till 2005 and the future of the show is still somewhat shrouded in mystery. The show’s creators and stars, David Walliams and Matt Lucas, have other irons in the fire including a new series for HBO.

For 2006, the lads were given the opportunity to create a Christmas Special with the first episode airing on Christmas Day and the second five days later. In it the various inhabitants of Little Britain go to various worldwide locations to get into their usual troubles – all lovingly narrated by Tom Baker. So here tis. Episode one finds Lou and Andy traveling to Disneyland, but when Andy presses the big red button that turns off the engines (erm, even if there was such a button don’t make the bloody thing so obvious) much to the dismay of pilot Steve Coogan. Yeah, but no, but yeah, but no but Vicky Pollard is in a prison in Thailand for drug trafficking and has to call in her mum (Dawn French). Bubbles DeVere tries to seduce comedian Ronnie Corbett in his French vacation home. Daffyd goes to a gay resort and can’t seem to find any homosexual gays. Fat fighter Marjorie Dawes goes to Miami to lead a group of fatties in her own mocking style. Mr. Dudley and Ting Ting are married and go to Belgium to honeymoon in his brother’s (Peter Kay) trailer where bro has acquired a virginal (cough, cough) Russian mail order bride (Julia Davis). Sebastian accompanies the Prime Minister (Anthony Head) to Washington D.C. and finds that the PM and the Prez might be a bit closer than even he imagined. Carol “Computer says no” Beer leads a group of lucky tourists to Spain. Little Britain Abroad is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include commentaries on both episodes by Walliams, Lucas, and director Geoff Posner. Next are 5 minutes of deleted scenes with optional commentary by the above. The 58-minute “Little Britain Down Under” takes a look at the touring show of their popular live show as it tours Australia. The lads even have an audience with the leader of all of those Aussies – Dame Edna Everage. The 45-minute “Little Britain does Comedy Relief” presents the show that the lads did for the charity special. It has appearances from Kate Moss, Dawn French, Dennis Waterman (the real one), and Patsy Kensit. I should say that those were the ones I recognized, there appeared to be many other British celebs that I didn’t recognize. The optional commentary should help ugly Americans like myself get those sorted out. There’s also a 50 second trailer for the Comedy Relief special.

I guess this is the end of Little Britain… Abroad. It does sound like the boys have moved on to other projects and this may be the last of some of the characters. However, I imagine that their most popular ones will live on in other projects. This look at our loonies around the world (or a set said to be in another country) is one last hilarious hurrah for the show. Little Britain – Abroad is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK. Visit the DVD database for more information.