AL MURRAY’S classic sitcom, Time Gentleman Please, is to be released on DVD, giving fans the chance to revisit THE PUB LANDLORD’S first-ever television role. The entire collection, consisting of series one and two, will be made available in one box set by ITV DVD from 16th March 2009.

Written by RICHARD HERRING (You Can Choose Your Friends, Fist of Fun) and AL MURRAY, the show stars the multi-award-winning PUB LANDLORD, joined by an impressive supporting cast, including: MARC BANNERMAN (Eastenders), PHIL DANIELS (Eastenders, Quadrophenia, Scum), REBECCA FRONT (Knowing Me, Knowing You, Jonathan Creek, Lewis), EMMA PIERSON (Little Dorrit, Hotel Babylon) and JULIA SAWALHA (Absolutely Fabulous, Pride and Prejudice, Chicken Run).

With quick-fire retorts and ‘the best of British thinking’, the boozer-based sitcom kicks off with THE GUV desperately trying to preserve the sanctuary of his male-only gaff. As the pub skids from one drama to the next, pull up a stool and watch on as THE PUB LANDLORD deals with a brand new (female) Brewery Area Manager ‘Muzz Jackson’, a face-off with the Landlord Academy bully, and his first date in a year…

The last couple of years have seen THE GUV record three series of the British Comedy Award-winning Al Murray’s Happy Hour (ITV1); headline Live at the Apollo (BBC ONE); and host a second Audience With for ITV1. In 2008 he also brought his unique Common-Sense-Reasoning to the literary world with the Richard and Judy Book Club-winning and The Sunday Times bestseller, The Pub Landlord’s Book of British Common Sense; and recorded his British Comedy Award- nominated live show …And Another Thing at the London Palladium for DVD (which sold over 200,000 copies). AL MURRAY has just begun a 53-date 170,000-ticket national tour Al Murray The Pub Landlord’s Beautiful British Tour - which includes two O2 Arena gigs and 12 new arena dates. Series two of Al Murray’s Happy Hour is set to be released on the same date (ITV DVD). In the meantime, AL MURRAY has written and recorded Al Murray’s Multiple Personality Disorder, a brand new character-led sketch series which is currently on primetime ITV1 every Friday at 9.30pm.

"The show has the energy of Al’s stage act, plus a great supporting cast."
The Sun

Time Gentlemen Please (cert 15, UK & Ireland), £24.99 RRP, Avalon Television 2000
Length: 897 mins (extras 32 mins). Release date: 16th March 2009


ends


For further information, review DVDs, images or interview requests please contact: Jo Cross or Dan Lloyd at Avalon on 020 7598 7222 or or joc@avalonuk.com / danl@avalonuk.com

WHAT THE PRESS SAID ABOUT:

TIME GENTLEMEN PLEASE…

"A sharp satirical edge. It should run and run."
Gerard O’Donovan, The Daily Telegraph

"Even though Murray’s still a big performance, he manages to achieve all those subtle contradictions, that identifiable confusion which make the landlord so…well, loveable."
Emma Perry, Time Out

"His new sitcom, ‘Time Gentlemen, Please’ transfers the beertoting stage favourite to the screen. The basic premise - ignorant publican rants on about pet hates - has been broadened out to create a distinctive sitcom world."
Bruce Dessau, The Express

"It’s a sweetly applied final nail in the coffin of the quaint notion of ‘alternative’ comedy."
Scotland on Sunday


AL MURRAY’S HAPPY HOUR…

"Murray has reinvented the chatshow. Out of the stale sycophancy of Parkinson and the nauseating sniggerfest that is Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and in with a genuinely entertaining programme in which the host pulls pints instead of punches… At last, a resounding success for ITV. Light entertainment with brains."
Mike Bradley, ‘Television’ The Observer

"Jonathan Ross' love-ins with Ricky Gervais. Parky telling Bruce Willis he enjoyed his film Hostage. A second series for Charlotte Church and The Sharon Osbourne Show. All evidence, surely, the chat show is dead... Yet... Soft. What light from yonder window shines? 'Tis a monstrous skinhead in a claret blazer... Al Murray, as The Pub Landlord. A raging inferno, for these last six weeks on ITV, with his Happy Hour. One of the few TV performances that actually deserves the tag "genius"... Admirably un-hip, wickedly talented, hard working, well rehearsed and spontaneously very funny."
Ally Ross, The Sun

"A thoroughly welcome return for Al Murray’s Pub Landlord. Expect the familiar devices; the non-listening interview technique (“Myeh. Myeh. Myeh.”), of an increasingly prestigious array of celebs prepared to abase themselves before the great man, the merciless interrogation of the “beautifully British named” victims in the front rows, the Queen cover versions and, of course, a relentless, ack-ack delivery of splendidly xenophobic home truths. Hail to the ale, indeed."
David Stubbs, ‘The Guide’ The Guardian

"Even if you automatically discount Channel 4’s The Friday Night Project (and well you might because, without wanting to sound too blunt, it’s rubbish) Friday night still has a remarkably crowded late night field. You could try another session of self aggrandisement and egomania on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, but we’d rather go with Al Murray’s offering. Why? It’s… (unlike some other millionaire purveyors of mirth) because he makes us laugh."
Ceri Thomas, London Lite

"Friday night comedy has rarely had it so good. The Pub Landlord, Al Murray, is back for a new series with his dangerous, high-wire comedy routine."
David Chater, ‘The Knowledge’ The Times

"It’s back - the jewel in ITV’s entertainment crown…Breathtakingly quick-witted and magnificently rude, without appearing to be so, The Guv always has the best questions - for example, to Mel B: ‘Did you ever have any technical problems on stage such as the microphones switching on?’ No wonder his guests spend most of their time convulsed with laughter."
Nigel Andrew, ‘Weekend’ Daily Mail


AN AUDIENCE WITH…

"TV Gold. And only one serious contender this week. ITV's Audience With Al Murray, who started an astonishing evening by annihilating his celebrity guests. And ended it by taking on the world. Still the best Audience With since Bob Monkhouse."
Ally Ross, The Sun

"If tonight's performance, in front of the usual shedload of famous fans, proves as successful as his first, then legendary status is surely within his grasp."
Mike Ward, ‘Saturday’ Daily Express

"If he [Russell Brand] wants to see how the solo schtick should be done - try ITV, Saturday, 9.05, Another Audience with Al Murray. It’s very funny."
Ally Ross, The Sun

"The most consistently exciting live comedian in the land for years."
Dominic Maxwell, The Times



AL MURRAY THE PUB LANDLORD’S BEAUTIFUL BRITISH TOUR…

"Viewers of Al Murray's Happy Hour will already know that he can interact with a crowd the way a conductor leads a symphony orchestra. Except that the music's all in his head. And he's making it up as he goes along. The question now is whether he can banter with 20,000 punters at once. But if anyone can do it, Murray can."
Nicholas Barber, The Independent on Sunday

"The angrier Britain gets, the more we need Al Murray’s singularly irascible publican. Through the blustering ire of his red-faced alter-ego, railing against Europe, political correctness and other modern ills, Murray gives vent to a hundred and one thoughts that usually dare not make themselves heard, while also sending up that outrage something rotten. His latest tour culminates in a gig at the O2 Arena, and with the assured mainstream success of his ITV chat-show behind him, he’ll fill it, easily."
Dominic Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph

"If you’ve only seen Murray’s monstrous creation on television, you really should check him out live in full flow. The Landlord might be a bullet-headed bigot with a fondness for military history and a hatred of mainland Europe but he is strangely loveable as well as laughable." _
Evening Standard

_"The comedy event I’m most looking forward to this year is the Beautiful British Tour by Al Murray the Pub Landlord. “Doesn’t he just do the same thing every time?” a friend of mine quipped. Well, yeah - he takes a room by the scruff of its neck and shows it who’s boss. Both a satire of blinkered thinking and a sly celebration of the seductive power of certainty, Murray’s Little Englander is at his best working off a crowd. His chat show has taken him to some of Britain’s biggest barns. Can he keep the fizz in his act? I bet he can."
Dominic Maxwell, The Times


AL MURRAY’S MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER…

"When it works, which often it does, this is like Little Britain gone right. Al Murray, the persona behind the Pub Landlord, does more than well in the sketches he stars in: as usefully, he bounces back up the stage to allow some grand other comic actors - Simon Brodkin, Laura Solon - to take the limelight, which they do with fabulous style and relish...In the grand history of sketch shows Murray gets much more right than he does wrong i.e. you laugh more than you turn away bored…Comparisons can be odious but, trust me, this is much cleverer than Little Britain, if only because no one involved here seems to think it’s pant breakingly hilarious to pretend to be a thin old wifie throwing up every week and weeing herself in the supermarket ho ho. There still needs to be, surely will be, some tweaking and expunging - but it is, so far, a better way to spend a Friday night than we've seen for a long time."
Euan Ferguson, ‘Television’ The Observer

"Al Murray is so convincing as the Pub Landlord that, like Ricky Gervais, you start to worry where the actor ends and the role begins. That's why it's such a wonderful surprise to see him playing so many different characters in this new sketch show. One of the best is the gentleman safe breaker who, having been caught, talks his way out of arrest. Better still is the airline pilot who rambles on over the intercom about his sex-change operation. A couple of sketches are based on great ideas - one being the trailer of an ITV drama starring Ray Winstone as Ghandi. And for lovers of old fashioned vaudeville who earns for the days of Dick Emery, Murray plays a Nazi dressed in pink who can’t wait to get down to some serious interrogating."
David Chater, ‘Play’ The Times

"Expect to be repeating his new catchphrases and discussing his latest creations for hours afterwards."
‘Fabulous’ News of the World

"It would be a determined curmudgeon who failed to raise a smile at some of this. The writing is solid, generally rising above the temptation of lazing on catchphrases, and a couple of the characters may garner enduring affection, especially the somewhat over familiar rural father."
Andrew Mueller, ‘The Guide’ The Guardian

"Above average, with the best sketch a clever two-hander with Murray and Jenny Eclair as radio presenters."
John Dugdale, ‘Culture’ The Sunday Times

"After 15 years of touring the country as the majestically belligerent Pub Landlord, Al Murray serves up some new characters in this boisterous sketch show… there are some winning ideas such as the PC PCs, a group of police officers who divide their time between clambering up mountains of paperwork and being tweely polite to criminals. Look out as well for the atypically honest footballer."
Michael Deacon, ‘Television & Radio’ Daily Telegraph

"So closely has Al Murray become associated with his multi-award winning Pub Landlord character that there may be some viewers who imagine they're one and the same person. Fortunately this excellent new seven part series, for which Murray takes on a whole array of new guises, should soon clear up any confusion."
Mike Ward, ‘Saturday’ Daily Express

"Backed by a strong supporting cast - notably the up-and-coming Simon Brodkin - Murray scored more hits than misses with a range of populist characters... Some characters such as the yokel dad who just 'luuuurrrves sex' go straight for the catchphrase jugular, while others such as camp Nazi Horst Schwull and the PC PCs look to have more staying power."
Mark Wareham, ‘Live Night & Day’ Mail on Sunday

AVALON TELEVISION

Avalon Television is one of the leading producers of award-winning comedy and light entertainment programmes in the UK. Founded in 1993, the independent production house supplies television programming to all the British terrestrial channels and the leading cable and satellite stations, in addition to content for radio broadcasters.

Recent television productions include: the double-BAFTA and British Comedy Award-winning Harry Hill’s TV Burp (ITV1); Al Murray’s Happy Hour (ITV1), the British Comedy Award-winning peak-time entertainment show; three series of the Royal Television Society and Rose D’Or award-winning sitcom Not Going Out (BBC ONE); the the Rose d’Or-nominated Touch Me I’m Karen Taylor (BBC THREE); the Rose d’Or award-winning Kombat Opera Presents (BBC TWO), a series of contemporary musical comedies from the creator of the multi-award-winning hit musical Jerry Springer - The Opera, with collaborators including STEWART LEE, DAVE GORMAN and TERRY JONES; a feature-length documentary, written by and starring DAVE GORMAN, entitled Unchained America (More 4); Laura, Ben and Him, a multi-character sketch show for ITV2 written by and starring hotly-tipped new writer performers LAURA SOLON, BEN WILLBOND and MAREK LARWOOD; You Can Choose Your Friends (ITV1) - a 90-minute comedy-drama starring the late ANTON RODGERS and JULIA McKENZIE; a prime-time reality format in the US called Wake Up Call (ABC Network); and The Greg Behrendt Show, a first-run syndication show in the USA produced by Avalon Television and Sony.

Avalon Television also produces radio, with recent projects including: series six of Out To Lunch (BBC Radio 2), a comedy show for Saturday afternoons hosted by RUSSELL KANE, featuring some of the finest up-and-coming comic talent currently working in the UK; a fifth series of DAVID BADDIEL’S acclaimed BBC Radio 4 comic-discussion show, Heresy; series three of Banter (BBC Radio 4), hosted by Sony Award-winning ANDREW COLLINS, a comedy panel show in which the guests including RICHARD HERRING and RUSSELL HOWARD are asked to hammer out Top Threes in categories covering anything from playwrights to Playstation; series two of Political Animal (BBC Radio 4), a socio-political satire show, hosted and linked by ANDY ZALTZMAN and The Daily Show With Jon Stewart (More 4) regular JOHN OLIVER; and the forthcoming BBC Radio 2 series written by and starring ANNA CRILLY and KATY WIX.

ITV DVD

ITV Global Entertainment Ltd is one of the World’s leading international TV distribution, home entertainment, publishing and consumer product businesses.

From the Americas to Europe, via Australasia, every hour of every day someone in the World is watching great and compelling television from ITV Global Entertainment, the partner of choice to over 3,000 leading broadcasters worldwide.

ITV Global Entertainment’s international home entertainment division and UK home entertainment label ITV DVD is led by Steve Gallant, Director, Home Entertainment & Digital. Featuring over 3,000 titles, ITV DVD represents one of the World’s most comprehensive television collections and owns the largest English language film catalogue in the world, featuring the Rank and ITC film collection.