A Visit to Shandy Hall
My favorite bonus material on the Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story DVD is the 16-minute "A Tour of Shandy Hall." In it, actor Stephen Fry visits what was once Laurence Sterne's home, north of York. Shandy Hall is now a museum, and Fry engages curator Patrick Wildgust in sparkling conversation during which they characterize Sterne as "the jester in the face of Death."
An Unconventional Audio Commentary
The DVD provides a feature-length audio commentary track by the two lead actors, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, and it's one of the most peculiar I've ever heard. They say they are naked, apparently to reinforce the satirical spirit in which they deliver clichés such as how an actor is emotionally naked when improvising and how actors must trust each other. Throughout their commentary, Coogan and Brydon move back and forth between joking and being serious. They are sometimes amusing, but over the course of the movie's hour-and-a-half running time, I found them to be often tiresome.
Additional Bonus Materials
The DVD contains miscellaneous other bonus materials, none of which particularly caught my fancy. Those familiar with the movie 24 Hour Party People, in which Steve Coogan plays a character named Tony Wilson, will no doubt want to watch the featurette where the real Tony Wilson conducts a 12-minute interview of Coogan. Also on the DVD are three deleted scenes with a total running time of about three minutes and four extended scenes that run a total of around 17 minutes. And finally, there's a two-minute montage about the intentionally cheesy battle scene where the extras were the Sealed Knot Re-enactors.
DVD Details
Below I have given the details for the Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story DVD.
Release Date: July 11, 2006
Feature Film Run Time: 1 Hour 34 Minutes
Widescreen (16:9), Color
MPAA Rating: R for Language and Sexual Content
English Dolby Digital 5.1
English Subtitles
Spanish Subtitles
Audio Commentary by Two Lead Actors
Tony Wilson Interview With Steve Coogan (12 min.)
Deleted Scenes (3 Scenes Totaling 3 min.)
Scene Extensions (4 Scenes Totaling 17 min.)
Behind-the-Scenes Footage (2 Segments Totaling 18 min.)
Theatrical Trailer
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