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Promotional art for Creator, I Am But a Pawn
Cover image credit: Promotional image via Prime Video

Creator, I Am But a Pawn

Glenn Wool

Stand Up! Records · 2019 · 61 min

Glenn Wool battles his own worst impulses in Tallinn, Estonia.

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Glenn Wool operates like a hard-traveling, slightly hungover street preacher who has a direct line to a deeply unhelpful inner voice. His central premise treats the self-sabotaging thoughts in his own head as a separate, malicious entity designed to steer him into terrible decisions. It is a framing device that lets him swing from lowbrow physical comedy to grand, mock-philosophical arguments about global history and human hypocrisy.

Filmed at the Apollo Kino Solaris in Tallinn, Estonia, the set captures Wool during a period of his career when he was essentially living out of a suitcase on a perpetual international tour. That transient lifestyle fuels much of his material, leading to anecdotes about an awkward cycling trip in Holland and a highly questionable incident involving flatulence at a Hiroshima memorial.

He also takes aim at weightier targets, addressing colonialism, white supremacy, and the futility of industry awards without sounding preachy.

Instead, Wool maintains the charm of an eccentric traveler who has seen too much of the world and decided the only logical response is to mock its absurdity. Even when the show detours into a strange closing sequence about sea cows, his heavy stage presence keeps the audience anchored.

The set list

5 bits

  1. The Futility of Awards / Kerrang! Awards incident

    Wool discusses offending heavy metal musicians while presenting an award, showing rockers can be just as sensitive as the PC police.

  2. Visiting Hiroshima

    Wool recounts how his internal voice got him into trouble at Hiroshima, using it to transition into a broader critique of white supremacy, colonialism, and atomic warfare.

  3. Cycling through Holland and Estonia with a GPS

    Compares listening to one's inner voice or religion to relying on an errant Satnav / GPS device.

  4. Returning to his father's ancestral village in Estonia

    Wool reflects on visiting the village his Estonian father originally came from.

  5. The closer (spoiler). Show it

    The title premise / Divine intervention closer

    A philosophical routine explaining the concept behind 'Creator, I Am But a Pawn' and the idea of God as an omnipotent prankster.

How it plays

Tone
Philosophical, irreverent, and occasionally raucous
On stage
Laid-back Canadian stoner persona combined with an engaging, philosophical, and consummate pro sensibility
Pace
Oft-declamatory delivery style, punctuated by occasionally raucous energy
About
the little voice in one's head (conscience, id, or higher power), religion and spirituality, travels across Estonia, Holland, and Japan, white supremacy and pale history, divorce and dating

What the critics said

Lauded as a brilliant and thoughtful performance where Wool uses autobiographical anecdotes to paint a larger resonance, making thorny subjects like faith and morality hilarious despite a declamatory style that takes getting used to.

In the room: Recorded live in front of an Estonian crowd where roughly half the audience eerily resembled Glenn Wool.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: allmovie.com, vimeo.com, iwm.freeawesometv.com, chortle.co.uk, one4review.co.uk, theseriouscomedysite.com, theskinny.co.uk, en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.

Backstory

Wool explores whether an unseen divine hand directs his life and travels, prompted by a New Year's Eve epiphany in a hot tub. His Estonian-Canadian heritage ties into the special, as his father was an Estonian who escaped a concentration camp after WWII.

Details

Released
Runtime
61 min
Where
Stand Up! Records
Director
Barry Castagnola
Topics
Before
This Road Has Tolls (2017)
After
Viva Forever (2020)

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