So I was poking around the Netflix offerings and found a NEW "Secret Policeman's Ball" recorded in 2012 for the 50th Anniversary of Amnesty Anniversary. It was recorded and broadcast live at the Radio City Music Hall in NY and it boasts performances from Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Russel Brand, Ben Stiller, a bunch of people from SNL, David Cross and Bob Oedenkirk, the surviving Monty Python members (pretaped), Tim Roth and Liam Nesson (those crazy kids) and a bunch of British talent like Chris O'Dowd, Peter Serafinowicz, Catherine Tate, and Stadler and Woldorf were in the balcony. TONS of folks. And Amnesty International is a very worthy cause.
The problem? There is NOTHING funny about Amnesty International, and since a bunch of the content was to make people aware of the group and the sort of problems in the world they're trying to solve, a lot of it just wasn't funny. Plus a good deal of comedy is based on surprise and when you know the skit is ABOUT something you can kind of see where it's going. The only good skits were the ones that weren't about Amnesty but original comps (like the mr Show sketch) but those were few and far between. Unlike the old ones (which are worth a watch) which had brilliant little elements like The Beekeeper sketch.
They had Jon Stewart and they made him ACT. The perfect person to talk about Amnesty, inform us and make us laugh, and they made him do a little joke act thing. Waste of his talent.
Honestly can't recommend this.
However, I did put in "You're Welcome America, One Final Evening With George W Bush! With Will Ferrell." Haven't seen it in years and it's SO freakin' funny, I'm bending over laughing every few minutes, the antidote to what I just saw which was a WHOLE SLEW of comic talent. That's saying something.