The Fonejacker is addicted to making prink telephone calls, taking on the guises of various characters to ensnare his victims. New characters in series two include Dufrais, the nation's number one complainer; Janec, a Polish immigrant who doesn't quite understand the British approach to privacy, manner or work ethics; Steve, a prison inmate who's looking for a good job on the outside, preferably with accommodations; and Mendoza, a master of the Dark Arts. Returning favourites include Terry Tibbs, a car salesman who makes dodgy dealing an art form; Mr Doovde, who can't quite grasp the concept of British abbreviations; George Agdgdgwngo, the scamster who wants your bank account details and sort code; and the Mouse who can talk. A specially created stylish visual narrative accompanies the calls using animation, stills and filmed footage of the victims and the Fonejacker himself at work...

Many moons ago, as a teenager I discovered a number of cassette tapes in my local library that went under the heading of Noel's Funny Phone Calls. These were a collection of spoof phone gags performed by Noel Edmonds on his radio show. Now, while I laughed like a fool back then I really didn't think that the format could be updated and served up to a modern audience.

I have to admit that I hadn't seen Fonejacker before reviewing this DVD, and I was expecting the worst. I mean, come on... there's only so much mileage you can get out of prank phone calls isn't there?

What I was expecting from Fonejacker was a series of rude, crass and very cheap jokes in a bid to appeal to a younger generation. To my complete surprise, Kayvan Novak not only has one of the best vocal ranges you're ever likely to hear, but he's also funny without resorting to cheap gags.

Okay... make that all but Donald Donaldson - the posh bisexual man out for sexual kicks - who goes about as low as you can go with prank phone calls. In these segments Donaldson starts off like an ordinary guy and slowly gets more and more suggestive until he is uttering swear words at his victims. These segments are also filmed so that you can see the victim's reaction as they realise they are dealing with a pervert.

Out of all the characters I think my favourite had to be the well meaning Sachin alias, Mr Broadbandings - a young Indian man who works at a call centre and is employed to push the many different business concerns of the Internet Service Providings company.

The one thing that did surprise me is just how rude real customer service staff can be - especially the directory enquiry staff that Mr Doovdé gets through to. I also noticed that there is obviously quite a lot of creative editing done to really tighten up the gags. For example a couple of the Mr Doovdé sketches showed the victims visibly laughing and passing the phone between each other before he's really started singing properly.

Extras include Christmas Special (23 min, 30 sec episode that came between series one and two); Opening Shots (1 min, 55 sec behind the scenes on the filming of the opening credits); and six video shoots (averaging about 2 mins each) of the footage that accompanied some of the gags).

Fonejacker's second series not to be missed - hysterically funny from start to finish.

10

Darren Rea