DVD
Nighty Night
Series Two

Starring: Julia Davis, Mark Gatiss, Rebecca Front and Angus Deayton
BBC DVD
RRP: £19.99
BBCDVD 1965
Certificate: 18
Available 03 April 2006


Following a murderous spree, the second series finds Jill still obsessed with Don and travelling - with the virtually brain-dead Linda - to a new-age health centre where Don and Cath, under the wing of hippy therapist Jacques, are trying to rebuild their relationship. But Jill's discovery of Cath's pregnancy sends her to new heights of violent delirium...

The second series of Nighty Night picks up the horribly hilarious and devastatingly dark tale after Jill has framed Glen for her bungled murder attempts. Jill is now moving on with her life, following a visit to Glen in an institution for the criminally insane to relieve him of the burden of his chip and PIN.

Jill's mission is to find ex-neighbour Don and finally make him hers. She kidnaps her friend Linda and takes her along on the crazed caravan crusade to North Cornwell where Don and wife Cath are recovering from their experiences and trying to make a fresh start, working through their marital differences at the Trees Therapy Centre.

Cath has become a new woman - confident and flirtatious - and clearly infatuated with her balding therapist Jacques. Don is the same as ever, but has found a new love of surfing and an impressionable teenage girlfriend. It's not long though before the beleaguered couple's lives are at the mercy of Jill's terrifying whims once more.

Julia Davis, who also wrote the series, plays the insane Jill Tyrell. And, to be honest I think the fact that Davis is a woman has allowed her to get away with so much more than a male scriptwriter would have managed. Her writing is just (and I mean just) this side of being truly offensive. I'm trying to imagine a man getting away with penning the scene where Jill is going through 12 year-old Bruce's bedroom trying to find some sperm to impregnate herself with. The moment where she picks up his underpants from his wash basket is in incredibly bad taste, but you can't help but laugh.

The second series flies close to the wind with a number of sensitive topics including racism (Jill takes the place of a black woman and spends a great deal of time telling everyone she is black and was brought up in the jungle); pedophilia (desperate to have a child with Don's genes she tries to seduce his 12 year-old son); rape (Jill claims that Don's son raped her); and bestiality (Linda's boyfriend tries to get Jill to perform with his horse for the camera).

I couldn't help but be reminded of Mike Leigh's Play For Today comedy Abigail's Party. Jill is not a million miles away from Alison Steadman's Beverly. The accent is almost identical, but there is also the fact that Jill tries to be in control of every situation by bullying those around her into doing things they don't necessarily want to do. Then there's the flirting with Don. In Abigail's Party Beverly also flirts with Tom, the husband of her neighbour. And, just like Don, Tom is not much of a talker - sitting for hours saying nothing. Then there is Rebecca Front's Cath. This character is very similar to Susan, Abigail's mother. She just goes along with what anyone else wants and is incapable of getting angry, spending the whole time apologising when other people trample on her.

As the episodes progress the farce element, as well as Jill's ridiculous lying, just gets more and more outrageous - until we are left with the payoff, a sort of Benny Hill style chase.

Extras include Behind Nighty Night (28 min behind the scenes featurette); Out-takes (8 mins); deleted scenes; BBC trails for the show; picture gallery; and an alternative cut of episode one - although to be honest this really isn't worth watching as there are very few differences. In fact, the alternate cut of Episode One should really have include the 15 minute footage that starred Doon Mackichan as the chatshow host.

It's a shame that some of the deleted scenes were cut - as they help to flesh out some of the events that aren't explained fully. In Episode Four there is a cut scene, entitled Squirrel in the Wind, that show Jill taking Natalie for a photo shoot. There's a great moment where Jill throws away her camera tripod and then minutes later the camera does a quick pan to show an old lady who is unconscious with the tripod on top of her.

Other deleted scenes explain how Linda managed to unstick her hand from Jill's nether regions after she managed to glue her hand to Jill's insides (apparently she lost a finger when trying to separate the two) and we discover where the man that Linda killed (by rolling on him) is stashed.

It may sound a little clichéd, but the second series of Nighty Night really does push the boundaries of comedy to breaking point. Thank God there are still individuals like Davis working for the BBC.

Darren Rea

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