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Look Around You
Background Information: Look Around You Look Around You is a BBC television comedy series devised & written by Robert Popper & Peter Serafinowicz & narrated by Nigel Lambert. The first series of eight 10-minute shorts was shown in 2002 & at the time of writing a second series is in production. The second series will be composed of six thirty-minute episodes & is expected to be presented in the pop-science vein of programmes such as How? & Tomorrows World. The episodes were a satire / homage of 1970s & early 1980s educational videos & schools programmes, with various subjects being discussed. The subjects were distorted beyond recognition, for instance, germs were described as coming from Germany. The general format of an episode would be an introduction to the subject, followed by a series of silly experiments performed by the hapless scientists, played by Popper, Serafinowicz & Edgar Wright, among others. At the end, the narrator would explain what the programme would be about next week, but none of these subjects were ever covered. DVD Extras: Look Around You on disc comes with a sizeable & appropriately bizarre selection of extras. The superb animated menus are designed to mimic the arcane, pastel-coloured diagrams found in any well-thumbed science textbook, & even feature the background noise of what is presumably a white-coated technician shuffling around the lab. The Additional Features include the double-length Calcium episode, a full-length music video of the song created in the Music module , a selection of spoof pages from Ceefax & the Test Card. The different sound modes allow you to watch with or without the narration, subtitles or an entertaining commentary from the programme makers.
Look Around You is a spoof science programme that hilariously recreates both the drab, depressing air of 1970s educational television & a bygone world of tedious school science lessons. Each of the 10-minute episodes, or Modules, takes the form of a number of surreal & pointless experiments based on a chosen theme ranging from Water & Sulphur to Ghosts & Brains. Look Around Yous humour lies not only in an absurd take on education & the impenetrable jargon of science, but also in evoking a sense of nostalgia in the viewer. In this respect the series is helped immeasurably by faultless production & attention to detail. Narrated in austere, Queens English, using precise scientific terminology, this is a world of scratched film inserts, dubious periodic tables, cheap, synthesised music, giant hairstyles, bulky, teak-finished technology & a proliferation of DYMO labels. Each show is even prefaced by a few seconds of the Television for Schools & Colleges countdown clock. The tutorial format of the series is not without its problems though, it is essentially a single, plotless joke stretched to eight episodes, & there are no characters to speak of, save glimpses of the deadpan & much-maligned lab-technician . Despite these shortcomings Look Around You is still a refreshingly different comedy, which is so well put together that you can almost smell the Bunsen burners while you watch.
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