The Secret Policeman's Ball (DVD 2003)

The Secret Policeman’s Ball raises funds for the Amnesty International charity and all praise to the contributors to the show for giving their time for free, many of them appearing year after year in support of this charity.
Most of the early contributors are from the old Oxbridge Footlights set and the same faces occur throughout the early Policeman’s Balls, gradually changing as new artists rise to fame.
A considerable number of the early sketches are taken straight from Monty Python
and are extremely funny and if you are familiar with Monty Python, seeing the sketches done by unexpected faces adds something new. If you are not a fan of Python there is still a lot of other very different acts that will appeal to a wide audience.
The earliest show on this DVD set is filmed partly in a black and white documentary style, obviously taken with a very old form of Camcorder, possibly a Umatic, the standard quarter ton of ‘portable’ news reporters equipment in the 70s. Picture quality is not exactly HDTV but gives a nice atmosphere.
Although this DVD set is billed as the complete edition, it may well include every show, but some items have been cut, omitting such acts as Willy Rushton’s ‘Putting on the Top Hat’, also the National Theatre of Brent, seem to be missing.
Despite this, what remains is classic British humour and well worth seeing and additionally, having all the shows together, it gives a historic view of the evolution of British comedy over thirty years or more.
Well worth buying and a great bit of nostalgia, seeing all those unwrinkled young comedians again.