Black Books was a British television comedy shown on Channel 4 staring Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey and Tamsin Greig set in a independent book shop in London. Black Books is the name of the shop owned by drunken owner Bernard Black (played brilliantly by Dylan Moran) who is far more interested in alcohol, cigarettes and reading rather than selling anything. Bill Baily plays Manny Bianco and Tasmin Greig plays Fran Katzenjammer who spend many of the show episodes trying to get Bernard to participate in the wider world, something he has little enthusiasm to do (like his book selling skills).
Black Books
From what I can remember Black Books was very funny, especially compared to most of the rubbish passed off as “comedy” on television at that period. The humour was often surreal with things like mollusc’s and dead badgers depicting how dirty the shop was. It wasn’t a very long run show, as each series only had 6 episodes but the writing which was also done by Dylan Moran was top notch. Black Books was also popular with television critics winning a BAFTA for Best Situation Comedy in 2001 and 2005 as well as the Bronze Rose at the Festival Rode d’Or in 2001.
Black Books cast:
| Character | Played by | |
| Bernard Black | Dylan Moran | |
| Manny Bianco | Bill Bailey | |
| Fran Katzenjammer | Tamsin Greig | |
| Black Books Episode Guide: | ||
| Black Books – Series One | ||
| Episode Number | Title | |
| 1 | Cooking The Books | |
| 2 | Manny First Day | |
| 3 | The Grapes Of Wrath | |
| 4 | The Blackout | |
| 5 | The Big Lock-Out | |
| 6 | He’s Leaving Home | |
| Black Books – Series Two | ||
| Episode Number | Title | |
| 1 | The Entertainer | |
| 2 | Fever | |
| 3 | The Fixer | |
| 4 | Blood | |
| 5 | Hello Sun | |
| 6 | Nice Change | |
| Black Books – Series Three | ||
| Episode Number | Title | |
| 1 | Manny Come Home | |
| 2 | Elephants And Hens | |
| 3 | Moo-ma And Moo-pa | |
| 4 | A Little Flutter | |
| 5 | The Travel Writer | |
| 6 | Party |
Although this isn’t a review by any stretch of the imagination (its just TV show info as you may have already guessed), but if you like dark, surreal and cleverly written British comedy you can’t go wrong with trying out the Black Books complete DVD box set which (looking today) is only around £16 from the likes of play.com and amazon.co.uk.
*Many thanks to Simon for letting me use his picture of the building used for the external shots in Black Books.
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