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Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy

This Road Has Tolls

Glenn Wool

Stand Up! Records · Album · 2017

A boisterous audio set about travel mishaps, karma, and generational oversensitivity.

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Glenn Wool operates like a stand-up pirate, a Canadian who built his career in the UK and spent years drifting from airport to airport with no permanent address. Released as an audio album by Stand Up! Records in 2017, this hour captures Wool’s road-weary, boisterous perspective on what happens when a life of constant travel starts pushing back. The material has its roots in his 2013 Edinburgh Fringe run, recorded live to capture the booming, theatrical delivery that balances a stoner drawl with sudden, loud bursts of camp righteousness.\n\nThe centerpiece of the set is a grueling long-haul flight where Wool had to endure a slipped disc while sitting next to a Buddhist monk, a scenario that forced him to contemplate whether the physical agony was karmic payback for a lifetime of minor sins. He spent the era nursing a bit of professional exhaustion after an expensive, unsuccessful attempt to break into the Los Angeles scene—a failure he turns into self-deprecating fuel.\n\nWool does not mind wading into murky waters, targeting the British royal family, the horsemeat scandal, and his own aging body with equal irreverence. His most personal and sharpest bit centers on his grandfather, a Second World War veteran with Alzheimer’s who was accused of “abuse” by a care home worker for snapping a mild insult. It is a classic Wool setup: loud, slightly chaotic, and deeply unsympathetic to modern oversensitivity, yet delivered with a warmth that keeps the room on his side.

The set list

4 bits

  1. Enduring a severe slipped disc on a turbulent flight seated next to a Buddhist monk

    Ruminating on whether agonizing physical pain serves as karmic retribution for past personal misbehavior.

  2. A care home worker accusing his 95-year-old grandfather with Alzheimer's of verbal abuse

    Critiquing societal oversensitivity by comparing a WWII veteran snapping mild insults to genuine historical horrors.

  3. Performing stand-up comedy to a coach tour of Jewish pensioners in New Jersey

    Recounting a disastrous gig to an entirely unsuited senior audience with high theatrical self-deprecation.

  4. Elaborate wordplay and shaggy-dog puns based on Asian geography

    Delivering groaner punchlines such as how Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City and returning to 'Tie-land', then dissecting the comedic construction of the jokes.

How it plays

Tone
Irreverent, dark, frivolous, and politically outspoken, alternating between brash confrontational humor and thoughtful self-mockery.
On stage
Described as Hagrid's rock-and-roll brother; booms like an apocalyptic preacher with vocal histrionics, big gestures, and a mischievous, twinkle-eyed aggressive charm.
Pace
Forceful, high-volume delivery blending passionate theatricality with sudden transitions into silliness and playful camp accents.
About
Life as an itinerant road comic and airport culture, Oversensitivity and modern morality, Aging, dementia, and elder care, Karma and Eastern religion, British news scandals and current affairs

What the critics said

Praised for Wool's formidable presence, magnetic stage command, and masterful balance of serious issues with silly wordplay, though some reviewers noted the disparate material lacked the edge of his greatest hours.

In the room: Quickly won over and kept in stitches despite Wool's boisterous shouting, mock hostility, and confrontational crowd interactions.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: itsalivemedia.com, chortle.co.uk, en.wikipedia.org, broadwaybaby.com, one4review.co.uk, timeout.com, standuprecords.com.

Backstory

Perpetual global touring and living out of airports, alongside personal health ordeals like suffering a slipped disc on long-haul flights.

Details

Released
Where
Stand Up! Records (album)
Topics
After
Creator, I Am But a Pawn (2019)

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