Atkinson's stuff is among the best here, be it as a hideous young Tory, or as Gerald the Gorilla, now civilised to a fault by the captor who caught him in the wild. ("Wild? I was livid!") The much-repeated bit of him walking into a tree, however, doesn't work as he clearly anticipates the collision. While the musical elements look inevitably dated and a lengthy sketch on darts players boozing reaches the "Yeah, we get the point" mark long before it reaches its end, it's surprising how topical much of this material remains decades on--a sketch involving an agonising gay vicar springs to mind--while time hasn't eroded the quality of much of the writing.

On the DVD: Not the Nine O'Clock News on disc comes with no extra features. --David Stubbs

This DVD does contain many of the fantastic sketches - I was disappointed by the absence of one or two things but I think there is a vol 2 so I'll have to wait and see if they are included on it. As for the sketches which are present, although the poor film quality and a lot of the references are dated, the comedy truly lives on, and anyone viewing even for the first time cannot fail to find humour in Gerald the Gorilla or Question Time, among many other gems.

There were a few sketches which did fail to amuse me for their entire duration - the very first sketch about darts players really does drag on too long. But the DVD is definitely worth getting for the rest of the comedy.

So why did I only give it three stars? Because such a fantastic show deserves a much better release than this. I could easily believe that the whole thing was produced in a rush. Despite the fact that many more sketches could have been included, and perhaps even outtakes or interviews, there are no special features or extra material whatsoever. I would have really enjoyed a few things that weren't included when the series was aired. Even the scene selection is appalling - it just skips through random sections of the DVD, so when settling down to watch it, it is sometimes necessary to just sit and watch the whole damn thing from start to finish to make sure you don't miss anything. Not a problem for me, because I enjoy it too much, but anyone suffering it without being a fan is not going to like the fact that they cannot select specific scenes.

It certainly could have been done a lot better, and there must be some great material from this show that was sadly excluded. However, to anyone who did enjoy the programme in its day, I would definitely recommend this DVD because - who could live without this comedy? Well done Not the Nine O'clock News, not so well done BBC.