Deja Rieu
Last week, I had to revisit a medical specialist who operates out of some rooms in Box Hill. His waiting room is tiny, with seating for only five patients. Sometimes, if all the chairs are taken, you have to stand, or wait outside in the corridor. In five years, the magazines have not once been refreshed; to sit in this room is to be reacquainted with names like Ashley Paske and Sofie Formica. Despite the cramped confines, the doctor has installed an enormous flat screen TV, which, in all the time I’ve been going there, has only ever screened the work of André Rieu, the receptionist’s favourite. Whenever I pull up in the car park, I wonder whether she’s finally gotten over her Rieu obsession, and maybe moved on to Michael Bublé, but no, she’s always just purchased his latest DVD and is running it on a loop, at top volume. No matter where you sit in the room, you’re way too close to Rieu’s leering mug, as he cheerfully introduces a whole new generation to such classical music standards as ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport’ or the theme from Neighbours.
I wonder if you have any idea just how many André Rieu titles there are available for purchase. The Ezy DVD site lists no less than thirty! There is barely a city in the world where the great grinning fop hasn’t recorded a DVD. There’s one called André Rieu: On His Way to New York (presumably recorded on the boat trip over), and another called André Rieu: New York Memories (on the way home afterwards?). But given that he lugs the same enormous ‘authentic Viennese castle’ backdrop around wherever he goes, what, really, is the point? Couldn’t he have banged out all thirty titles from the one location, simply varying the set list to include his usual token local references for each?
At least Rieu does actually change his set list from one title to the next. One of the most outrageous rip-offs in the history of cinema involves Richard Pryor’s first, and best, stand-up movie, Richard Pryor Live in Concert (1979). Over seventy-eight classic minutes, the brilliant Pryor is on fire (not literally – that would come later), and such was the film’s popularity that, eight months later, the producers released Richard Pryor is Back Live in Concert. But although it was advertised as an entirely new movie (it merits a separate listing in Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide), fans were shocked to discover that it consisted of the exact same material, some of it recorded at a different (but identical looking) location. In both shows, Pryor was wearing the same clothes, the only difference being that, in the newly shot sequences, he was sporting a wristwatch. A more accurate title would have been Richard Pryor is Back Live in Concert Doing the Same Material But in Some Shots Wearing a Watch. Nonetheless, the ‘new’ film was a hit, with audiences apparently keen to see whether Pryor’s acquisition of a timepiece had ‘changed’ him any.
But this shameless act of recycling is microscopic potatoes compared with those of once beloved UK comic Peter Kay. I say ‘once beloved’, because never has someone squandered so much goodwill so quickly, through sheer naked greed at the DVD well. Kay was the ‘roly-poly’ star of Phoenix Nights, a sitcom so enjoyable that, here in Australia, it was buried on ABC2 and seen by no one. In Britain, its gargantuan popularity allowed Kay to tour with a show drenched in warm nostalgic comedy about dunked biscuits and how your dad dances at a wedding. The tour was a massive success – Kay was soon unable to leave his house without people yelling out his catchphrase ‘Garlic bread!’ – and was captured on the best-selling DVD Peter Kay: Live at the Bolton Albert Halls (2003).
But within a few months, the fans grew restless. ‘Garlic bread’ just wasn’t funny anymore; they needed something new to shout out. Kay soon obliged with another DVD, Peter Kay: Live at Manchester Arena (2004). Sales went through the roof. But when they played the new disc, purchasers were stunned to find that, as with Richard Pryor’s second film, it contained merely another performance of the earlier show, the only variation being that Kay was wearing a different jacket. A much more expensive jacket, unsurprisingly. The reviews at Amazon are largely unprintable.
But Kay didn’t stop there. In 2007, he released yet another live DVD, Peter Kay: Stand Up UKay. Surely, the fans thought, after three long years, this one would contain some new material. But no, not only were the same routines back, this time there wasn’t even a new jacket. The disc consisted of the ‘best of’ the two earlier shows – using the same footage – interspersed with vox pops from concertgoers, who, surprisingly, weren’t carrying flaming torches and demanding the comic slowly be grilled in tinfoil, garlic bread-style.
Now, if you think that’d be the end of it, you’d be wrong. A year after the Stand-Up UKay disgrace, Kay released still another DVD containing not a single frame of new material, Peter Kay: Special Kay. This one, accurately described at Den of Geek! by the heading ‘Peter Kay Stiffs His Fans Yet Again’, contains nothing but offcuts and outtakes, excerpts from chat show interviews, TV commercials featuring Kay and even an ad for his own book! A book in which he reveals the origins of, among other things, the ‘Garlic bread’ routine. Can another DVD about the writing of the book be far away? And then maybe a CD of that DVD? And a documentary about the making of the CD? Which could itself be accompanied by a book. I can only imagine what people are yelling at Peter Kay these days.
Here in Australia, only Chris Lilley has dared to go down the ‘double-dipping’ path, but at least he chocks his Special Editions with more extras than an André Rieu concert. But recently, at an ABC Shop, I did spot what I hope isn’t the tip of an appalling new iceberg: a ‘new’ Kath & Kim DVD titled ‘Kel’s Choice Cuts’. With this, we are expected to believe that the fictional Kel Knight has sat down and selected his four favourite episodes of the sitcom based in part on his life (what an odd experience watching them all back must have been for Kel). It’s hard to believe that there is still anyone who hasn’t by now seen every episode of K&K but, assuming there is, why would they want to watch just four randomly chosen episodes? I’ll tell you why. Because ‘Kel’s Choice Cuts’ comes with a free Kel Knight apron!
Imagine, for a moment, the potential buyers’ thought process: ‘You know, I’ve already seen all four of these episodes several times, and, in fact, I can buy a full series containing eight episodes for the same price, and while I realise it’s going to cost me twenty-five bucks…I just have to have that fucking apron!’
Yes, Kath & Kim is a great show (some of the cameos, in particular, are excellent) and Kel Knight is a classic character, but if you’re shelling out twenty-five bucks just to get the apron, then maybe you need to get out more. Even if it’s just to watch a Dutch nob and his thousand-piece orchestra performing ‘Yakety Sax’.
That’s not a joke, by the way; you’ll find it on New York Memories. Because nothing says ‘New York’ like the chase music from The Benny Hill Show.
Tony Martin is the Melbourne-based author of ‘A Nest of Occasionals’ and ‘Lolly Scramble’. Podcasts of his radio show ‘Get This’ are still available for free download at iTunes (type in: ‘Get This: Richard Marsland Lives’). He is currently directing new episodes of ABCTV's ‘The Librarians’.
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