Dave Allen

Told by family and friends, with rare unseen archive, this documentary reflects on the career of Dave Allen, relative of poet Katharine Tynan, and a natural performer who cut his teeth at Butlins. He became a TV star in Australia in his twenties, before returning home to dominate the schedules here in Britain with his unique blend of sketches and stories in a career that took in films, plays, documentaries and chat shows, alongside award winning comedy series.

Compilation of favourite gags, routines and observations, selected from across the groundbreaking comedian's thirty years in showbusiness and including trenchant reflections on life, death, smoking and the nature of the Irish, all delivered from his trademark stool with a glass of whisky in hand.

Dave Allen was an alternative comedian before the phrase even existed. He was an innovator who set the agenda for comedy and comedians for more than thirty years. All he needed was a stool and a glass of something and he was in his element, reflecting laconically on such subjects as sex, the Irish and God, traffic, smoking, the Bible, Life and Death. Also sex, the Irish and God... This DVD contains his very own personal choice of sketches, gags and monologues. It's a vintage display from a unique raconteur - a man who observes out guilt, weaknesses and doubts and makes us laugh at them and at ourselves.

With his trademark props - the stool and the whisky glass - Dave Allen proves the essentials of great comedy are simply a microphone, an audience and an hour-and-a-half of your time! Undoubtedly Dave Allen On Life showcases this most original stand up comedian at his unsurpassable best. Hand-picked by Dave, these classic monologues on the idiocy of life and include over 20 minutes of footage never seen on TV before.

Vietnam. The last days of the war. A crack squad of Army special forces commandos led by Johnny Reynolds undertakes an unauthorized combat mission behind enemy lines with disasterous results.

British comedy legend Victoria Wood entertains a star-studded audience including Julie Walters, Judi Dench and Dawn French in this 1988 special. Watch her crack jokes, play the piano and answer light-hearted questions.

Alan Bennett's play about the mid-life crisis of an estate agent.

A 1974 documentary in which Dave Allen meets a variety of eccentrics, including a man who lives in a box on wheels, a cowboy vicar and a man who pretends to fly a Lancaster bomber in his garage.

When greed threatens the livelihood of an Italian monastery, a monk flees with the formula for their special liquor.