Bottom (TV Series) Gas (1991) User Reviews

The Gasman Cometh!

[Rabical-91 · 10/10 · 20 December 2016]

Richie and Eddie are enjoying a game of poker whilst all around them heaters and radiators are burning at full power. This is because they have connected an illegal gas pipe to their next door neighbour's gas mains and are stealing his supply. However, they panic upon hearing a knock at the door. It is none other than a man from British Gas, who is checking the meters in the neighbourhood due to a complaint from their neighbour that he is paying too much for his gas supply.

Alas, Richie and Eddie fear the consequences of being caught and just before the gas man leaves they beat him up by punching him and hitting him repeatedly with a frying pan. Richie and Eddie cannot find a pulse.

Worse to come, they must find a way to get next door and disconnect the illegal pipe without being caught by their neighbour - the violently psychotic Mr. Rottweiller.

'Bottom' had only been on air a fortnight when it came up with this little cracker. Yes, it is crude and crass and yes it is unbelievably stupid but it is bloody funny. Theft of fuel and gas ( usually by squatters and travellers ) was rife in the 1990's and to this day still takes place. It was therefore only natural that two scumbags such as Richie and Eddie should undertake such an unacceptable deed. Of course, they are later rumbled. Mark Lambert ( who I recall as the hapless man who lost his luggage in the 'Airport' advert used for Hamlet Cigars ) plays the nervous gas man. Stealing the episode is the late Brian Glover, who as the aptly named Rotweiller looks as though he could be a relative of Grant and Phil Mitchell from 'Eastenders'. Glover is probably best remembered for his role as the heavy handed P. E teacher Mr. Sugden in the brilliant 1969 drama 'Kes'.

One thing that bothers me though. Why on earth would the gas man attend Rotweiller's flat in the middle of the night to read his meter? One can only assume it is caused by confusion due to the blows to his head he sustained from Richie and Eddie

Funniest bit - Richie and Eddie knocking ten bells out of the gas man!

Another Enjoyable Episode

[slightlymad22 · 8/10 · 25 December 2014]

After a great first episode, "Bottom" delivers another funny episode

Plot In A Paragraph: Richie and Eddie are visited by the Gasman to read their meter, which is illegally connected to their next door neighbour Mr. Rottwhiler's gas supply. When Richie and Eddie pretend that they don't use gas and do not even know what Gas is (really) and when he says he is visiting Mr. Rottwhiler next, they accidentally kill the Gasman. So Richie and Eddie set out to disconnect their illegal connection from Mr. Rottwhiler's flat, before they get into trouble with the Gas Board and worse the police.

You could see some of the jokes coming in this episode, but that does not make it any less enjoyable.

I'm glad my nine year old son is enjoying a comedy that I loved back when it was first released

One of the strongest episodes

[snoozejonc · 9/10 · 29 September 2020]

The gas man visits Richie and Eddie and gets a lot more than a meter reading.

This is an excellent early episode with the central characters really showing us how funny they can be with banter, slapstick, facial expressions and physical mannerisms.

It starts off fairly quietly with a humorous undercurrent as they cheat each other at cards whilst the gas fire and stove blasts out heat from all angles. As soon as the gas man turns up we get some of the most outrageously violent sight gags I've ever witnessed. Then the action moves next door for Richie and Eddie to display more outrageous behaviour and events compound the plot towards an explosive conclusion.

Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson are incredible at delivering jet black, juvenile comedy and this one has everything. Deception, violence, theft, sexual deviance and home intrusion. If you ever want to watch an episode that shows you exactly what Bottom and its two stars are about it's this one.

There are many standout moments in the episode, but the main one for me is the ridiculous three-in-a-bed position Richie gets himself into in his neighbour's bedroom.

Brian Glover has a funny cameo as their psychotic next-door neighbour Rotweiller. He would need to be living next door to these nutters!

"IT'S THE GASMAN!"

[The-Last-Prydonian · 9/10 · 10 February 2023]

When the Gasman comes calling to read their meter. Richie and Eddie panic, as they have connected their gas connection to their next Door Neigbour Mr. Rotweiller's meter, to reduce their gas bill. Nearly killing him half to death, and managing to get him out of the way for several hours, the pair of them attempt to reconnect Rotweillers gas main to his meter in an attempt to cover up their crime.

With the second episode of Series 1, Gas continued to set the standard that Rik and Ade did so with Smells that preceded it. Again, as with its debut, they set up what is essentially a basic premise, but this time one that is a tad more elaborate than what had come before. Hammersmith's premier losers find themselves in hot water, as they face being rumbled from attempting to fool the gas board, which sets the stage for some sublime, off-kilter comedy as they attempt to wiggle their way out of the predicament they've got themselves into. From practically bemusing, and then scaring and killing the poor, anxious, and bewildered Gaman, and beating him near half to death, to attempting to remove the evidence, which brings them face-to-face with their fearsome and violent, next door-neighbor Mr. Rotweiller, played by Brian Glover on a psychotically intimidating form, who is in the midst of wooing a sultry blonde, (and incidentally appeared with Rik Mayall in, An American Werewolf in London), and half-killing themselves in the process, before trying to get a gawp at Rotwiller's young dates unmentionables.

It's the perfect showcase for both Rik and Ade's squalid, yet consummate quasi-cartoon, a bawdy brand of humor, as well as some of the inspired insane slapstick comedy that the series would become synonymous with the series. Needless to say, this episode, as with Bottom, in general with its more lavatorial comedy and violent nature won't be for everybody, but for those who can stomach it, Gas represents the boys at their most inventive, and absurdist in only the most vomit-drenched manner that only the fantastically insane duo could.

Mayall reunited with Glover.

[BA_Harrison · 8 February 2020]

Series one, episode two of Bottom, and the formula is already starting to get repetitive. This is another 'zany' half hour of knockabout violence and crude humour, and it really isn't all that funny, Rik Mayall and Ade Edmonson doing the same tired schtick that they did ten years earlier in The Young Ones (back when it was fresher). Occasionally, one of their puerile remarks might elicit a snigger, but for the most part it is hard to believe that they a) got paid for this, and b) managed to stretch out the format over three series.

This time around, Eddie (Edmonson) and Richie (Mayall) are visited by the gas man, who is investigating unusual fuel consumption in the area. It turns out that the pair have been stealing gas from their neighbour Mr. Rottweiller (Brian Glover) and now they must sneak into his flat to disconnect their pipe before anyone finds out. Cue plenty of slapstick, explosions, and Richie crawling into Rottweiller's bed to take a closer look at the man's tasty blonde girlfriend. Might provide a few giggles for the easily amused, but it's far from the best of British TV comedy.

N.B., Mayall and Glover can be seen together in An American Werewolf in London (1981), playing chess in rural boozer The Slaughtered Lamb.