An Evening With Blowers Henry Blofeld, the Voice of Cricket, Live   Starring: Henry Blofeld Acorn Media UK RRP: £16.99 AV9681 Certificate: E Available 01 June 2009

Henry Blofeld journalist, cricketer, broadcaster and author makes his debut on DVD, featuring his much loved one man show. Known to millions for nearly 40 years of cricket commentating, he is without doubt one of the great English personalities of our time. With his distinctive rich voice and famous expression "My Dear Old Thing" his is notorious with listeners not just for his cricket commentary but, when weather stops play, for his musings on a variety of subjects that include pigeons, planes, double decker buses, cakes and of course wine...

Filmed live at Colchester on his 2008 UK tour, this DVD features Henry Blowers's one man show "An Evening With Blowers". Over the course of 1 hour and 25 minutes, Henry Blofeld takes us back to his early idyllic childhood in Norfolk and his eccentric parents, through his school days and discovering cricket, to Cambridge and an early career as a merchant banker in London which he later deserted for a life in cricket journalism and eventually commentary. He recounts these charming tales in his unique and inimitable way featuring an array of colourful characters that have peppered his interesting life.

I was surprised to discover that Blofeld is not the most natural of public speakers - stammering a little too often and building up stories that often have no interesting conclusion. While there is interesting material here (most of it other peoples stories) the biggest problem is that his material really needs someone to go through it and beef up the comical anecdotes a little bit more.

As interesting as his early life is, I felt there was a lack of humour in these segments of his life which makes the early sections of this DVD drag a little. Once he gets onto his journalism stories this show picks up and you can almost forgive the rather dull opening. He also ends the show well. He leaves us wanting more after telling the longest and most amusing story of his material - it's Clive Dunn's joke really, but it's easily the funniest gag on the DVD.

In fact, it's his relationships with celebrities that form the most interesting tales. His stories about Ian Fleming, Noel Coward and the Queen are the most enjoyable. Those that are looking for plenty of cricket anecdotes may be a little disappointed. While there are amusing stories about his time as a commentator, there are very few stories about the cricketers he knew.

Extras include A Conversation with Henry Blofeld (8 min Q&A); An Introduction by Henry Blofeld (text based); Biography (text based) and Photo Gallery.

While an interesting enough release, this is obviously only really going to appeal to those who want to know a little more about the man behind the voice of cricket.

7

Darren Rea