Matt Berry and Rich Fulcher Sketch Comedy
Rich Fulcher is probably best known as moronic American zoo manager Bob Fossil and Matt Berry can be found starring in a substantial number of my favorite things (Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place and AD/BC as well as the Boosh… he recently appeared in an episode of the Sarah Silverman program which really upset me because I don’t want her sleeping with him!) so you can imagine how excited I was when Mike and Shaun returned from LA with a copy of Snuff Box, a musical comedy series written by and starring Berry and Fulcher.
The two of them are so charming that the combination of Fulcher’s weirdly naive, awkwardly earnest physicality combined with Berry’s haughty impatience and perhaps the best voice in contemporary comedy would be funny even if it were just a string of swear words and farting… which is exactly what Snuff Box happens to kind of be… plus some really dark weirdness.
They play friends – well, maybe not friends exactly… comrades, I suppose – who are members of a gentleman’s club exclusively for hangmen. Episodes of their adventures in the hanging business are interspersed with sketches that are often very funny, but just as often downright odd. The six existing episodes (plus a disc of Berry’s music from the series – which will become lodged in your head for days) are available in a handsome boxed set you’ll want to pick up at Amoeba, if you happen to have an all-region DVD player.
Much to the dismay of the cult show’s devoted fans (myself now included), a second season was never commissioned by BBC. I’ve included some clips and a number of stills after the jump.
But what do you think?