Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson are best remembered for 'The Young Ones' and 'Bottom', yet how many people remember 'The Dangerous Brothers'? They were a double act created and performed by Rik and Ade who came to prominence after making appearances at 'The Comic Strip Club' in Soho in the early '80's along with other then up and coming comics such as Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Peter Richardson and Alexei Sayle. In 1985, the duo were given a weekly slot in 'Saturday Live', broadcast by LWT for Channel 4.
'The Dangerous Brothers', or Richard Dangerous and Sir Adrian Dangerous to give them their character names, would appear before a live audience each week, amusing us by announcing the latest stunt they plan to pull off, only for things to go disastrously wrong, which would then culminate in one or both getting seriously hurt. On a couple of occasions, the pair really did suffer some injuries. For instance, in the first sketch, 'World Of Danger', Rik set fire to Ade's legs but the stunt went wrong and Ade was left with serious burns.
'The Dangerous Brothers' were crude, filthy, violent and juvenile in the extreme, but what else would one expect from Rik and Ade? More often than not the sketches were very funny and there was quite an excellent array of guest appearances including Morwenna Banks, Norman Lovett, Arnold Brown, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, John Bird and a very pregnant Jennifer Saunders.
My favourite sketch was 'Torture' in which we see Richard and Adrian in a torture chamber where Adrian has his hand forced into a blender and his testicles clamped by a red hot set of pliers amongst other eye watering methods of torture. One item, 'Kinky Sex' was deemed too offensive to be broadcast and as a result, 'The Dangerous Brothers' ended up being banned from 'Saturday Live', that is until they made their final appearance in a sketch entitled 'Dangervision' in which they blew up a wall in LWT's car park.
Looked at now, 'The Dangerous Brothers' can now be seen as a forerunner to Rik and Ade's excellent BBC sitcom 'Bottom'. All of the sketches ( including 'Kinky Sex' ) were compiled together on a BBC VHS cassette, which I am reviewing here. In 2009, it was released on DVD, only this time it was titled 'Dangervision: The DVD'. Not for the more refined viewer but for a true fan of Rik and Ade, it would be criminal to not give 'The Dangerous Brothers' a bash.
'The Dangerous Brothers', or Richard Dangerous and Sir Adrian Dangerous to give them their character names, would appear before a live audience each week, amusing us by announcing the latest stunt they plan to pull off, only for things to go disastrously wrong, which would then culminate in one or both getting seriously hurt. On a couple of occasions, the pair really did suffer some injuries. For instance, in the first sketch, 'World Of Danger', Rik set fire to Ade's legs but the stunt went wrong and Ade was left with serious burns.
'The Dangerous Brothers' were crude, filthy, violent and juvenile in the extreme, but what else would one expect from Rik and Ade? More often than not the sketches were very funny and there was quite an excellent array of guest appearances including Morwenna Banks, Norman Lovett, Arnold Brown, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, John Bird and a very pregnant Jennifer Saunders.
My favourite sketch was 'Torture' in which we see Richard and Adrian in a torture chamber where Adrian has his hand forced into a blender and his testicles clamped by a red hot set of pliers amongst other eye watering methods of torture. One item, 'Kinky Sex' was deemed too offensive to be broadcast and as a result, 'The Dangerous Brothers' ended up being banned from 'Saturday Live', that is until they made their final appearance in a sketch entitled 'Dangervision' in which they blew up a wall in LWT's car park.
Looked at now, 'The Dangerous Brothers' can now be seen as a forerunner to Rik and Ade's excellent BBC sitcom 'Bottom'. All of the sketches ( including 'Kinky Sex' ) were compiled together on a BBC VHS cassette, which I am reviewing here. In 2009, it was released on DVD, only this time it was titled 'Dangervision: The DVD'. Not for the more refined viewer but for a true fan of Rik and Ade, it would be criminal to not give 'The Dangerous Brothers' a bash.
