The Peter Serafinowicz Show

February 6, 2010

Director: Becky Martin,
Starring: Peter Serafinowicz, Belinda Stewart-Wilson, Catherine Shepherd, Paul Putner, Bronagh Gallagher,

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DVD Review

Darren Jamieson +

Peter Serafinowicz is that comedian with the hard name to pronounce, and impossible to spell, yet he is a very talented individual. He may seem like he’s fairly new to some, but Serafinowicz has been around for a long time doing various TV and voiceover work.

Fans of erectile dysfunction might remember a certain advert where football legend Pele talked about erection problems; that was Peter Serafinowicz dubbing his voice. Fans of Star Wars may be trying to forget The Phantom Menace, but they won’t want to forget Ray Park as Darth Maul, the best thing about the film; that was Peter Serafinowicz providing his voice.

Peter Serafinowicz is a very versatile voice actor, and that’s where most of his best comedy comes from. For example, his sketches in The Peter Serafinowicz Show that show The Beatles arguing demonstrate the skill of Peter’s impressions as he plays John Lennon and Paul McCartney perfectly.

Serafinowicz is also providing the voice of Paul McCartney in the upcoming 3D movie version of Yellow Submarine.

In The Peter Serafinowicz Show, we’re treated to a series of sketches showing various comedy creations, such as the gay Sherlock Holmes who becomes aroused when he solves a case and has to take Watson there and then, and the robot talk-show host who keeps outing his guests’ secrets before they can say them, and then proceeds to try and kill everyone.

The trouble with this sketch show is that sketch shows by and large are becoming passé. Right the way through to the 80s, sketch shows were the mainstay of British comedy – however we now have different tastes and improvisation shows such as Mock the Week, Would I Lie To You and QI are more popular than the sketch show format. Only shows such as Little Britain and The Catherine Tate Show have successfully lasted with the sketch show format. It’s an old style of comedy and one that takes a long time to build up any momentum, due to its reliance on the audience’s familiarity with the characters and the catchphrases that they use.

Whether The Peter Serafinowicz Show will be around long enough to build up any kind of momentum is another matter, but this show, while having its moments (such as the brutally honest shopping channel presenters who call everything shit) still suffers from too many missed laughs.

From a personal note though, Serafinowicz’ impression of Vader was funny on a geek level because he ‘is’ the voice of Darth Maul – nerds up and down the country would have chortled to themselves over that one, before explaining it to their parents or better halves.

Darren Jamieson

Darren has enjoyed an interest in film for many years, studying the subject at Newport Film School where he worked on the film ‘Cop on the Edge IX: Prelude to Justice‘ in a directing and acting capacity. The official site can be enjoyed here. Darren setup WhatDVD.Net in 2003 to further his love of films and to write passionately about the movies he enjoys, and about those that he doesn’t.

Although his day-to-day activities mean that he now has less time to review movies than he would ideally prefer, he still tries to review new releases, and DVDs from his extensive collection, whenever possible.
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