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Unfortunately my hard drive crashed so I’m late posting this brilliant video clip.
A good old school sketch from A Bit Fry and Laurie:
Insanely cool and we all know it. I’ve previously told you how much I like the Colbert Report so it doesn’t really come as a surprise that the Daily Show is also one of my favourite shows. And as I really enjoyed Stephen Colbert being interviewed at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government it was to be expected that I would enjoy Jon Stewart being interviewed by Bill Moyers. As much as I love those two shows on Comedy Central it is also rather nice to see Jon and Stephen talking about their work.
I think it’s something that I just enjoy in general; people talking about their work, be it comedians, writers or scientists, it’s really cool to get to find out more about their work, about how they do it, getting a sneak peak into their mind. Incidentally this is pretty much the only thing I liked about the documentary Fermat’s Last Theorem: mathematicians talking about their work, other than that there wasn’t much in that tv documentary (rather thin on the maths content side, but then again it’s supposed to be accessible – the book on the other hand was much better).
Anyway, sorry for the quick detour, back to what we were talking about; thank PBS and see Bill Moyers interviewing Jon Stewart here.
Earlier this afternoon I watched Bill Hicks’ legendary one night stand. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it before on the one Bill Hicks DVD I own, nevertheless it’s brilliant comedy that deserves to be mentioned. I think Bill Hicks was a brilliant comedian, though he can come across as rather repetitive. I think there are about 4 different shows on the DVD I’ve got and the intersection of material common to all of them is pretty large. Let’s face it, hearing the same material over and over again is off-putting, no matter how brilliant the material was to start with. But I guess this is probably due to his premature death. He didn’t get to do more material so in order to give you value for money the industry sells you several shows which happen to be very similar (but hey surely as a fan you don’t care).
So while we’re on the subject of stand-up comedy I figured I’d mention (ie. plug) some of my favourites.
George Carlin is probably number one on my list. He’s been doing this for decades and like a good wine he gets better as he ages. Well, I’d definitely say this was the case up to back in town which might be his zenith. Though ultimately we’re talking about a comedian who has done numerous great shows, still keeps going and definitely has yet to ’suck’. A man who wouldn’t surprise me if he outdid himself with his next show.
Obviously most comedians on my list are not politically correct. But then again if you like your entertainment PC you should stick to Disney and don’t venture near any decent comedy.
Robin Williams is another great stand-up comedian, though he’s certainly better known for his acting. A Night at the Met is an absolutely fabulous record. An absolute classic, released in 1986. He started doing stand-up again in 2002. Though Live 2002 is definitely a good show I can’t say that it lived up to my hopes and/or expectations.
Steve Martin is another stand-up comedian who is better known for his acting, well technically he hasn’t been doing stand-up in a long time, still I like to think of his as a stand-up comedian. His stuff was quirky, weird and smart. I love his stand-up.
One thing that I’ve noticed about Robin Williams and Steve Martin is that their stand-up work was far more daring and unconventional than most of their movies. I have terrible memories of seeing them in Disney comedies. It’s painful to see such comic genius being wasted on one-dimensional kiddy-humour. Though there have been bright spots, for example I loved Steve Martin in Bowfinger (no wonder the movie rocked – he wrote it).
Another great comedian is Steven Wright. He’s weird, really weird, but really weird in a really good way.
On a related note, though technically not a stand-up comedian (but he’s drifting off in that direction), I totally dig Henry Rollins‘ talking shows. They’re smart, witty and often funny. He’s one of the few who has the skill to go from something utterly hilarious to a really depressing story and the transition is incredibly smooth. I believe he’s possibly one of the best storytellers alive right now. Furthermore his writing is incredibly intense. If you think he’s just a crazy, tattooed punk you’re missing out on one hell of an artists. He even has his own talk show, though I dare say it didn’t live up to my expectations.
I could probably go on for much longer talking about these great artists and add more names to the list, but in the spirit of blogging I shall strive to keep it short (OK, so I failed but I’ll stop now).
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