I see someone is awfully critical of this episode, but it is the first one, and how about an opportunity to develop the characters. In this one, Bernard, who runs a bookstore but seems to hate books and the customers that buy them, is faced with doing his taxes. He keeps terrible records and people fear his pleadings. There are two other character introduced, Manny and Fran. Fran finds himself in a strange place when he accidentally swallows a book of aphorisms, called "The Book of Calm." He now can spout a clichéd responses to nearly any situation. Fran runs a junk shop next store. She spends most of the episode trying to figure out what a globe-like thing does. Funny things happen when Bernard tries to find ways to not deal with his taxes. A couple of Christian men on their journey are astounded when they are let in to talk about Jesus. It turns out that Bernard knows a great deal more. Things get even more wacko when he realizes that if he is seriously injured he can put off his filing. So he sets out to cause trouble and get beaten up. Manny is starting to look like a messiah with his pronouncements. All in all, I thought it was pretty funny.
6 Reviews
Good start to the show.
Sleepin_Dragon21 November 2015
I'd say it's good start to the series as opposed to a hilarious episode, it sets the scene and has a few chuckles, but it certainly gets better as it goes on.
A fun small performance from Martin Freeman as the hospital Doctor, he looks so young.
I love how Bernard will do anything to put off doing his accounts, for anyone that has attempted to do their accounts you can sympathise with him. Fran is good fun, and Bill Bailey's brilliant.
Great use of the skinheads too haha.
8/10
A fun small performance from Martin Freeman as the hospital Doctor, he looks so young.
I love how Bernard will do anything to put off doing his accounts, for anyone that has attempted to do their accounts you can sympathise with him. Fran is good fun, and Bill Bailey's brilliant.
Great use of the skinheads too haha.
8/10
Cooking the Books
Prismark1025 May 2020
You can tell from the first episode that Black Books shares its DNA with Father Ted. Graham Linehan is the co-writer.
Bernard Black (Dylan Moran) runs a small book shop, Black Books. He is rude to his customers. In the first episode his accounts are in disarray and his accountant is suddenly on the run from the police.
Having to do the books himself Bernard would rather spend time talking religion to Jehovah's Witnesses or try to injure himself so he can buy more time.
Into his life enters Manny Bianco (Bill Bailey) a stressed accountant who has just swallowed the little book of calm which he purchased from the bookshop.
Anarchic, surrealistic it certainly breaks away from formulaic sitcoms. There are some nice touches as Manny walks around like Jesus later scaring off the Jehovah's Witnesses.
A promising first episode with only the next door gift shop owner Fran (Tasmin Greig) who seems to be the only one who gets on with Bernard.
Watch out for a young Martin Freeman as a hospital doctor.
Bernard Black (Dylan Moran) runs a small book shop, Black Books. He is rude to his customers. In the first episode his accounts are in disarray and his accountant is suddenly on the run from the police.
Having to do the books himself Bernard would rather spend time talking religion to Jehovah's Witnesses or try to injure himself so he can buy more time.
Into his life enters Manny Bianco (Bill Bailey) a stressed accountant who has just swallowed the little book of calm which he purchased from the bookshop.
Anarchic, surrealistic it certainly breaks away from formulaic sitcoms. There are some nice touches as Manny walks around like Jesus later scaring off the Jehovah's Witnesses.
A promising first episode with only the next door gift shop owner Fran (Tasmin Greig) who seems to be the only one who gets on with Bernard.
Watch out for a young Martin Freeman as a hospital doctor.
What a start!
grantss14 May 2023
Bernard Black runs a small bookstore that somehow survives despite Bernard's non-existent customer service skills and ethos. He is particularly frazzled right now as it is tax time and he is doing his taxes himself - his accountant is on the run from the police. Fran runs the nearby knick-knacks store and can't fathom out what the gadget she is selling does. Manny works in an office and hates his job. The Little Book of Calm is the only thing that can get him through the day.
Wonderfully funny, imaginative and absurdist start to the series. We are introduced to the main characters - Bernard, Fran and Manny - and how they know each other and right off the bat we have some great plots and skits.
A notable episode too for having early-career Martin Freeman in a minor role. A year later he would be starring in The Office.
Wonderfully funny, imaginative and absurdist start to the series. We are introduced to the main characters - Bernard, Fran and Manny - and how they know each other and right off the bat we have some great plots and skits.
A notable episode too for having early-career Martin Freeman in a minor role. A year later he would be starring in The Office.
I did not know it was sitcom
CursedChico8 November 2020
'Finished your accounts?' 'Yes. I've turned them into a rather smart casual jacket.'
scorfield-5171126 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Much was expected of this series, given that it was written by Perrier Award winner, Dylan Moran, in partnership with Graham Linehan, the creator of the nation's favourite, 'Father Ted'. The setting of a bookshop doesn't seem the perfect environment in which to explore comedy, and yet, there is nothing as bitingly funny as a misanthrope performing a role where one would typically expect a range of 'people skills' they sadly, but hilariously lack - the 'Basil Fawlty' factor. The aggressive stance of this character came from Linehan who had once seen a sign outside a bookshop in Dublin declaring: 'Please put the books anywhere you like because we've got nothing better to do than put them back.' This is so wonderfully apparent in the opening scene, where our anti-social bookshop owner, Bernard Black's open distaste for his customers is palpable. His opening exchange occurs when one affluent customer has the temerity to enquire as to whether a bound Dickens collection is genuine leather in order to match his real leather upholstery at home. This receives the brilliant, snide retort from Black, in rejecting the customer's offer of £200: 'I need leather bound pounds to go with my wallet'. This is immediately followed by his highly inappropriate, but amusing, corralling of his clientele out of his shop, armed with a loudhailer and broom.
The title of the episode refers to Black's comedic predicament of painfully having to complete his slipshod business accounts, after his dishonest accountant goes on the run for fraud - this latter character is wittily named 'Nick Voleur', his surname meaning 'thief' in French. What follows is a genial sequence of purposeless distractions Moran's character undergoes to avoid balancing his books, from pairing his socks to brilliantly deciding to entertain the visiting Jehovah Witnesses. The latter scenario is made even more hilarious by their obviously being unaccustomed to gaining entry inside any door they call upon, or to actually have a chance to hand out and discuss their literature.
Jehovah's Witness: Hello. We're wondering if we could talk to you about Jesus.
Bernard: Great! Come in!
Jehovah's Witness: What?
Bernard: I'd love to hear about Jesus. What's he up to now?
Jehovah's Witness: It's a trick!
In having his disheveled character run a second-hand bookshop, Moran was reflecting his own view of bookshops as guaranteed commercial failures, doomed for closure. Certainly, in Black's case, he has no business acumen and detests the mundanity of performing any of those tasks required of an owner of an independent business. Hence, after just one night spent on this mindless task, he has transformed his tax receipt into a composite piece of clothing.
Yet, outside of this one thread of the story-line, much of the episode fails to produce real moments of humour. Moreover, the talents of Tamsin Greig and Bill Bailey are underplayed in rather humourless sub-plots. In the case of the former, as Black's best friend and fellow retailer, Greig struggles with a lame comedic device in which her character fails to ascertain the purpose of an item in her stock, while also having to deliver some of the weakest dialogue. In terms of the latter, as a customer whose purchase of the 'Little Book of Calm' has unforseeable consequences, what promised to deliver much ends up descending into 'over-the-top', repetitive and ineffectual antics.
Having accidentally digested this miniscule tome, Bailey's character, Manny, is transformed from a stress-ridden, disgruntled, office employee into a halo-enlightened sage who has absorbed the book's aphorisms on how to lead a tranquil life. Part of this flimsy sequence features, as the young doctor treating Manny, a 'pre-'Office' and decidedly unfunny Martin Freeman.
The only redeeming scenes towards the finale being that where Black, having ascertained that only injury can defer completion of his tax return, offers a customer a free book if he breaks his legs in return - a la scene from 'Misery'. He then decides to intervene in a fracas outside his establishment between Manny and a threatening group of Millwall skinheads. This is no 'Good Samaritan' gesture, but rather, Black's desperate attempt via insults to spark a physical beating to serve his ends. As such, he hilariously declares to the skinheads: 'Hey, you know when you're doing the usual threesome thing you do on a weekend, and the moonlight's bouncing off your heads and your arses and everything, does that not get a bit confusing?
Overall, there is potential, for this series to succeed, especially in terms of characterisation, but this first episode only has sporadic moments which truly work.
The title of the episode refers to Black's comedic predicament of painfully having to complete his slipshod business accounts, after his dishonest accountant goes on the run for fraud - this latter character is wittily named 'Nick Voleur', his surname meaning 'thief' in French. What follows is a genial sequence of purposeless distractions Moran's character undergoes to avoid balancing his books, from pairing his socks to brilliantly deciding to entertain the visiting Jehovah Witnesses. The latter scenario is made even more hilarious by their obviously being unaccustomed to gaining entry inside any door they call upon, or to actually have a chance to hand out and discuss their literature.
Jehovah's Witness: Hello. We're wondering if we could talk to you about Jesus.
Bernard: Great! Come in!
Jehovah's Witness: What?
Bernard: I'd love to hear about Jesus. What's he up to now?
Jehovah's Witness: It's a trick!
In having his disheveled character run a second-hand bookshop, Moran was reflecting his own view of bookshops as guaranteed commercial failures, doomed for closure. Certainly, in Black's case, he has no business acumen and detests the mundanity of performing any of those tasks required of an owner of an independent business. Hence, after just one night spent on this mindless task, he has transformed his tax receipt into a composite piece of clothing.
Yet, outside of this one thread of the story-line, much of the episode fails to produce real moments of humour. Moreover, the talents of Tamsin Greig and Bill Bailey are underplayed in rather humourless sub-plots. In the case of the former, as Black's best friend and fellow retailer, Greig struggles with a lame comedic device in which her character fails to ascertain the purpose of an item in her stock, while also having to deliver some of the weakest dialogue. In terms of the latter, as a customer whose purchase of the 'Little Book of Calm' has unforseeable consequences, what promised to deliver much ends up descending into 'over-the-top', repetitive and ineffectual antics.
Having accidentally digested this miniscule tome, Bailey's character, Manny, is transformed from a stress-ridden, disgruntled, office employee into a halo-enlightened sage who has absorbed the book's aphorisms on how to lead a tranquil life. Part of this flimsy sequence features, as the young doctor treating Manny, a 'pre-'Office' and decidedly unfunny Martin Freeman.
The only redeeming scenes towards the finale being that where Black, having ascertained that only injury can defer completion of his tax return, offers a customer a free book if he breaks his legs in return - a la scene from 'Misery'. He then decides to intervene in a fracas outside his establishment between Manny and a threatening group of Millwall skinheads. This is no 'Good Samaritan' gesture, but rather, Black's desperate attempt via insults to spark a physical beating to serve his ends. As such, he hilariously declares to the skinheads: 'Hey, you know when you're doing the usual threesome thing you do on a weekend, and the moonlight's bouncing off your heads and your arses and everything, does that not get a bit confusing?
Overall, there is potential, for this series to succeed, especially in terms of characterisation, but this first episode only has sporadic moments which truly work.
See also
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