Curb Your Enthusiasm - Complete DVD Box Set

RRP: £79.99

Best Price: £72.09

Curb Your Enthusiasm is arguably the American ‘Fawlty Towers’ - only one must substitute John Cleese’s misanthropic, hapless hotelier for Larry David’s misanthropic, hapless millionaire writer. However (with no sleight on the contained genius of Cleese’s creation) whilst watching Fawlty rush headlong into inevitable disaster was simultaneously joyous and cringingly excruciating, with Curb Your Enthusiasm we get to watch David set himself up for similar catastrophe’s, but also skewer the pretensions of the Hollywood lifestyle of L.A.’s privileged inhabitants on the way. And, let’s face it; they are not the most likeable bunch.

Playing an exaggerated version of himself, David (creator of Seinfeld) bumbles from one offensive mishap to another. Whether its accidently turning up at an incest survivor group, attempting to pass off Benadryl tainted brownies as a gift, or offending the honour of a Japanese friend by questioning his elderly father’s kamikaze piloting career, he shows an uncanny ability to choose the worst course of action for every already awkward situation.

This gives the show the same watch-through-your-fingers quality as ‘The Office’ or the aforementioned ‘Fawlty Towers’; we often know exactly what the character is going to do and we really wish they wouldn’t. However, such is the quality of the writing that this predictable aspect is undercut by the return of situations that arose in earlier episodes, or even earlier season’s, which one has often forgotten about or deemed inconsequential, only for them to provide the hilarious end of episode pay-off.

David’s creation is ably supported by his long-suffering on-screen wife Cheryl Hines, producer-friend Jeff Garlin, comedian Richard Lewis and the fantastically foul-mouthed Susie Essman, as well as a host of celebrity special guests (including Ted Danson, Sacha Baron Cohen, Steve Coogan and Mel Brooks). This box-set gathers all the episodes from the award winning show’s six seasons, as well as an interview with Larry David and a series of behind-the-scenes documentaries.