EAT THE RICH, FIVE GO MAD IN DORSET and BAD NEWS get deluxe DVD release

More info on EAT THE RICH

•            Eat the Rich is a 1987 British black comedy film directed by Peter Richardson. A co-production between Channel Four Films, Iron Fist Motion Pictures and Michael White Productions, it features cast members from the popular television series The Comic Strip Presents….including Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French.

•            The film stars Lanah Pellay, and Nosher Powell as the Home Secretary, and includes cameos from a number of well-known figures, including: Miranda Richardson and Nigel Planer as vile DHSS clerks, Robbie Coltrane, Rik Mayall as a union boss, Paul McCartney, Shane MacGowan, Jennifer Saunders, Jimmy Fagg, Kathy Burke, Koo Stark, Dawn French, Bill Wyman, Jools Holland, Hugh Cornwell, Adrian Edmondson, Angela Bowie, and Lemmy. The film begins in a high-class London restaurant named ‘Bastards’ where the protagonist, Alex (Pellay), is a waiter. Subject to the upper-class customers’ daily contempt and disgust, Alex is eventually fired for being obnoxious and rude to the clientele. After witnessing a terrorist act on an embassy, he robs a benefits office and goes on the run with his new friend.

•            Meanwhile, Nosher Powell plays the Home Secretary, a menacing, beer-swilling, fornicating, lovable lout who has his own no-nonsense way of dealing with trouble, usually with his fists. He is the darling of the voters, the press, and the gorgeous Fiona (Fiona Richmond), a glamorous KGB agent. He was also the one who ended the terrorist situation that Alex witnessed earlier in the movie. However, Nosher has enemies, including the sinister Commander Fortune (Ronald Allen), who plots a people’s revolution with a difference, and General Karprov (Dave Beard) and Spider (Ian Kilmister), who plot to derail the Home Secretary’s campaign of becoming Prime Minister.

•            After assembling a four-person team of would-be anarchists, Alex returns to ‘Bastards’ and lays waste to the clientele and staff. He begins serving them up to other rich people in their new restaurant, ‘Eat the Rich’. When Commander Fortune and Spider find out about these changes to the menu, they formulate a plot to get rid of the conservative Home Secretary for good.

More info on FIVE GO MAD
•            In the summer of 1982, the Comic Strip made their first film FIVE GO MAD IN DORSET – a spoof of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books enjoyed by millions of children since the 50s.  These stories were exciting adventures about four children and their dog who were allowed to wander off in their school holidays, on their own (with no phone) to an unknown destination and get entangled with unshaven criminals stealing our country’s secrets!

•            In satirising the Famous Five, the Comic Strip bluntly highlighted the sexist and casual racism of the period in a way that’s no longer acceptable on TV.  In 1982, with The Black and White Minstrel show barely off the air and Robertson’s Jam still handing out gollywog badges, these attitudes were still prevalent but hardly commented on.  Five Go Mad in Dorset won the Press Award and was welcomed for playing a small part in changing this.

•            THE STORY
Home for the holidays the Famous Five are given the news that their Uncle Quentin a famous scientist has been kidnapped yet again and as usual their Aunt Fanny can’t wait to get them out the way.  So, Julian (PETER RICHARDSON), George (DAWN FRENCH), Dick (ADE EDMONDSON) Anne (JENNIFER SAUNDERS) and their dog Timmy, set off on bikes into deepest Dorset., a landscape of hidden lanes and ruined castles riddled with thieves burying treasure or rendezvousing with suspect light aircraft. And not forgetting the sinister gypsy (ROBBIE COLTRANE) always there ready to scare passers-by!  When the Five are not stopping for enormous picnics, they’re at the village shop buying yet more food. Here they meet Toby, a boy with far too much money and clearly lower class.  Despite being patronised, Toby wants to be their friend. Begrudgingly the Five allow him to join them for a short while providing he’ll then ‘clear off ‘.  However, Toby is kidnapped (for a ransom) and the Five at last have a crime to solve.  Going in search of clues they get an unexpected shock.  Their famous Uncle Quentin was not kidnapped and nor was Toby!  When finally cornered, Quentin tries to explain that he and Toby are both gay and planning to ‘flee the country that night in a fishing boat ‘…This cuts no ice with the Famous Five  “Homosexuality is still against the law Uncle Quentin and you’re going to jail!  Looking even more smug than usual the Five watch proudly as the police arrest their Uncle and Toby and take them away for a long stretch inside. Then remounting their bikes, they head off for another huge picnic and lashings of ginger beer. Hurrah!

•            From fifties English values to FIVE GO MAD ON MESCALIN, the Famous Five meets 60s flower power head on when gay Uncle Quentin buys his very own Love Island.  A beautiful rocky paradise where he can supplement his scientist pension with a bit of drug smuggling. But no, the priggish Famous Five have to go and spoil it all.

•            30 years on from FIVE GO MAD IN DORSET’s opening on the 1st night of Channel Four the Comic Strip reunite for FIVE GO TO REHAB to see how this self-righteous bunch have fared in later life. Not too good it seems…Julian and George having had a rackety time with failed marriages, bad business deals and lashings of vodka are in rehab to clean themselves up for a planned reunion that Dick has organised and so wants it to be like the old days. Sadly, after their thrilling childhood adventures, Dick’s life has been rather dull, having spent twenty years as the manager a car rental company.  Anne, meanwhile, far from being ‘shy and pretty.’ is a radical feminist and vegan who’s not going to take shit from Julian or anybody…and so it begins.