Check Out The Secret Policeman's Balls

Top comic and music talents assembled for a series of Amnesty International benefit performances in England in the '70s and '80s. Five concerts will be available on DVD in North America for the first time when they're collected in a three-disc box set, logically titled The Secret Policeman's Balls, that will be released by Shout! Factory on Jan. 27.

The box includes: 1976's Pleasure At Her Majesty's; 1979's The Secret Policeman's Ball; 1981's The Secret Policeman's Other Ball; 1987's The Secret Policeman's Third Ball; and 1989's The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.

There are acoustic musical performances by Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Sting, Phil Collins, Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Jackson Browne, Joan Armatrading, Bob Geldof and Donovan. There are also rare guitar duets from Clapton with Jeff Beck and Mark Knopfler with Chet Atkins.

It's just as good, if not better, for comedy lovers. The DVDs feature performances by members of the Monty Python (John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin) and Beyond The Fringe (Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller) comedy troupes. Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean), Jennifer Saunders (Absolutely Fabulous) and Hugh Laurie (House, M.D.) also go for laughs.

Special features include: Remember The Secret Policeman's Ball?, a 2004 feature-length documentary that commemorates the 25th anniversary of the 1979 Amnesty show and chronicles the history of The Secret Policeman's Ball series; performances that have never been seen in North America; rare promotional television spots, trailers and news footage; long-unavailable sequences from the original North American releases; and introductions and audio commentaries by series co-creator Martin Lewis.