Customer Reviews
A surreal and magnificent comedy! - By: B. H. J. Hammond, 09 Aug 2007 
Written originallly by a young Victorian girl one summer, The Young Visiters has never been out of print since it was rediscovered some years later. This 9-year-old's brilliant observations of a surreal society have been flawlessly translated to the smalll screen by the BBC, resulting in a comedy that - although entirely suitable for children - is at times as black as other classic BBC comedy ventures.
The style of it reminded me almost of The League of Gentlemen (although, obviously, lacking the mature content) since the extremeties that the hero Mr Salteena endures to find his way over to the 'right side of the blanket' are at times a bleak prospect, while at the same time being side-achingly funny.
The simple (but also surprisingly insightful) story woven by young Daisy Ashford only gains from Patrick Barlow's sympathetic screenplay. He cleverly chose to retain as much of the original dialogue as possible & the writing, which at times incoperates some strange sentence structures & interesting adjectives - as one might expect from a 9-year-old - only adds to subtle charm of this adaptation. Every area of the piece from the unreal monarchy to the love scene is given new life from the visual gags. As with countless other BBC adaptations, you notice new things each viewing.
Fans of Jim Broadbent & Hugh Laurie will not be disappointed either - both perform flawlessly, as does Bill Nighy. Stretching their wings in these surreal roles, the comic timing between them is stage-quality. It is obvious that these people had a lot of fun making this - it is evident in the character of even the cameos.
As you may have noticed, I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone, even if BBC costume dramas are not usuallly your thing. I would defy anyone to not find a single funny scene. Buy it now! (And then read the book =)
