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Black Books is a British television sitcom, broadcast on Channel 4 and written and directed by Dylan Moran, Nira Park and Graham Linehan. The show won the BAFTA for Best Sitcom as well as a Bronze Rose at the Festival Rose d'Or of Montreux (Switzerland in 2001).
The multi-series is set in the Bloomsbury area of central London, in a small independent book shop owned by Bernard Black (Dylan Moran), a foul mouthed, eccentric irish drunkard. The show is based around Bernard's often surreal antics and the lives of his two friends: Manny, a hairy former accountant who works for Bernard, and Fran, who owns a gift shop next door during the first two series.
Moran insists that the idea of Black Books was not from the Hugh Grant movie Notting Hill where he had a cameo part that involved going to Grants independent book shop in North London and attempting to steal books.
Stars
Episodes
There have been three series of Black Books, each with six episodes.
Series 1 (2000)
- Cooking the Books - Manny pops into Black Books to pick up the Little Book of Calm in an attempt to thwart the office stress where he works as an accountant. An incident involving chunky soup occurs and he ends up in hospital where he absorbs the book into his system gaining the power of calm. Wandering the streets he engages a group of skinheads ready for some physical violence. Bernard, having already tried avoiding doing his tax returns and accounts by pairing socks, discussing religion with door-to-door evangelists and making dashing suits out of reciepts, discovers he can defer doing them if he is suffering from a short term illness by taking the skinheads on. Fran, absorbed in discovering exactly what it is her shop is selling forgets all about being a birth partner. Guest stars writer Graham Linehan.
- Manny's First Day - Manny accepts a job from a very drunk Bernard and gets a trial day to prove himself. He gets on well with the customers and sells a lot of books but Bernard decides to let him go because it's not that kind of operation. Wine, a reminder he needs somebody sane around and the threat of violence from Fran persuade Bernard to keep Manny on board and he decides to move in.
- The Grapes of Wrath - Bernard and Manny agree to house-sit for a friend and mistakenly drink his expensive wine including a blessed bottle created from the miracle grapes of a rose due to be presented to the Pope. Bernard decides to create a replacement vintage with a fraction of nature's resources and a cripled idiot of an assistant called Manny.
- The Blackout - Manny stays up all night watching cop show The Sweeney and drinking espresso. When he sees an old lady getting mugged he pretends to be a cop in order to apprehend the criminal and ends up at the local station helping detective Morris put the good cop, bad cop routine on a local villain.
- The Big Lock-Out - Black Books gets a new alarm fitted that doesn't let anyone in or out of the shop that leaves Manny trapped inside with nothing but a bottle of Absinthe and Bernard locked out with barely enough money for pop-corn and a cinema ticket. Fran meanwhile is too busy to answer Bernard's desperate calls instead listening to silky voiced ex-friend Hal Granger reading the shipping forecast on the radio. Bernard is left penniless and cold on the streets where he hangs out with a pornographer and eventually takes a job at fast food parlour Mamba Burger to avoid the rain. Guest stars writer Graham Linehan, Nick Frost and Peter Serafinowicz.
- He's Leaving Home - Bernard breaks the last straw - well, technically the last yo-yo string, and Manny decides to leave home. He is picked up off the streets by a photographer with a beard fetish and treated to a glamourous life of expensive clothes, coffee and silk sheets but there's a price to pay for high living.
Series 2 (2002)
- The Entertainer - Fran decides to take up the piano and gets a foreign blind piano tutor to help who refuses to let her give up. Manny suddenly discovers he can in fact play the piano while Bernard somehow manages to get a date. Both Fran and Bernard enlist Manny to help woo their audience on the piano by hiding inside and playing it with spoons.
- Fever - Things are hotting up in London and Manny warns everybody that he suffers from Dave Syndrome which will activate at a specific temperature which Bernard believes is attention-seeking nonsense. Fran thinks her room is closing in on her only to discover it's not the heat at all but her unscrupulous landlord creating another flat next door. Bernard meanwhile showers Fran's new neighbour with flowers, poetry and truffles - the heat leading him to believe she is in fact his girlfriend. Guest stars Johnny Vegas.
- The Fixer - Manny enlists the help of a friend to get Fran a job only she has no idea what it is she's supposed to be doing. In exchange the fixer has asked the pair to host a reading of his nephew's new book at the shop. The only problem is his nephew is a hulking great illiterate whose ghostwritten autobiography details the pain he's inflicted on so many others. Guest stars Rob Brydon
- Blood - Fran delves into genealogy to uncover he roots and decides to get to know her relatives.
- Hello Sun - Fran takes up Yoga. Guest stars Jessica Stevenson.
- A Nice Change - Fran, Manny and Bernard decide to take a holiday when two weeks of loud round-the-clock building work starts next door. All packed and ready to go they realise Manny has forgotten to book the tickets and have to take a last-minute cheap deal instead.
Series 3 (2004)
- Manny Come Home - After an incident with Manny, his hand, a sandwich toaster and Bernard Manny decides to leave the shop to take a job next door at the newly constructed Goliath Books. There he is part of the team complete with psycho leader Evan (played by Simon Pegg) and his army of pale pastel-shirted followers. Armed with only a dootity-doo card and an endless supply of muffins things fall apart when Fran drops by and Bernard kicks him out leaving him nowhere to live.
- Elephants and Hens - Fran leaves for the weekend to go to a hen party while Bernard and Manny, inspired by their latest childrens books event, decide to write and illustrate a book for children. Bernard's first effort at over 1,000 pages covering Stalin, divorce and a journalist is possibly a little complex for them but the subsequent masterpiece The Elephant and the Balloon could lead them to international fame - and all the problems that come with it. Guest stars Lucy Davis.
- Moo-Ma and Moo-Pa - Manny's parents unexpectedly drop-by to stay after Bernard deletes Manny's messages. As if the inconvenience of Manny's parents, their songs and stories aren't enough it turns out Manny's letters home may have been somewhat exagerated and needs Fran and Bernard to play along. Guest stars Annette Crosbie and Sam Kelly
- A Little Flutter - After a small win on the Grand National Bernard gets addicted to gambling leaving Fran and Manny in competition to sell as many books as possible to fuel his addiction. Soon horses aren't enough and Bernard is leant money to take part in an illegal poker game where Bernard (now nicknamed The Gold Mine) looses all his money including that borrowed from a con-artist. Fran and Manny hatch a plan to come up with the money before they take Bernard's shop... or his legs.
- Travel Writer - Manny organises a book launch party at the shop with charasmatic travel writer Jason and everyone starts falling for him and his stories of far-away adventure. Bernard however has other problems including getting rid of the cat upstairs who has now become the legal owner of the building after inheriting it from old woman who lived there. Guest stars Julian Rhind-Tutt
- Party - Manny and Fran drag Bernard to a party where Manny wants to hook up with Rowena, a girl he likes very much. Manny arms himself with an array of items to leave about the house and Fran checks her perfect new hairstyle. What could possibly go wrong? They return much later armed with a bizzare selection of alcohol, messed up hair, and a desire to dance very very badly.
Trivia
- Is considered a sister-show of Spaced - guest stars from Spaced have included Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Jessica Stevenson while Bill Bailey had a recurring part in Spaced.
- Many of the cast members of both Spaced and Black Books can be found together in the film Shaun of the Dead
Quotes
From the first episode of the first series. Bernard is painfully doing his tax when he hears a knock on the door:
- Evangelist #1: We were wondering if we could talk to you about Je-sus
- Bernard: Great! Come in!
- Evangelist #1: What?
- Bernard: I'd love to hear about Jesus! What's he up to? Come on in!
- Evangelist #1: Er, are you sure?
- Bernard: Yes! In, in! Come in!
- Evangelist #2 [afraid]: It's a trick!
External links
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