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Brick Wall Comedy
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Thanks for Risking Your Life

Lewis Black

Prime Video · 2020 · 63 min

Lewis Black performs his final set on the eve of lockdown.

Watch it free on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Lewis Black walked onto the stage at the Silver Creek Event Center of the Four Winds New Buffalo casino in Michigan on March 13, 2020, and opened with a literal observation: “Well, thanks for risking your life.” It was the same day the United States declared a national emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because the venue sat on sovereign tribal land operated by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, the show went on even as theaters across the rest of the country locked their doors. It became the final performance of Black’s tour, captured not with an elaborate television crew, but with the two-camera setup usually reserved for his post-show internet rants and casino projection screens.

The resulting hour is an accidental time capsule of a country on the precipice of lockdown. Rather than concentrating solely on the looming virus, Black vents his familiar frustrations at consumerism, pharmaceutical advertising, and political incompetence. He targets the specific promises of the brain-health supplement Prevagen, the hollow satisfaction of Amazon’s two-day free shipping, and the general state of public policy under the Trump administration. The delivery is classic Black: pacing, hand-waving, and building to a raspy crescendo of high-decibel indignation.

While the production lacks the visual polish of his earlier network specials, the audio version of the set was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album in 2022. It captures the unique anxiety of a comic trying to make an audience laugh on the very night the live entertainment industry ground to a halt.

The set list

4 bits

  1. Greeting the audience during the onset of the pandemic

    Opens the performance with the unvarnished line 'thanks for risking your life to be here,' addressing the imminent crisis without setup.

  2. Two-day free shipping

    Explores free shipping as the lone unifying consensus in an intensely divided country, joking that as a child he prayed to God for it to exist.

  3. Donald Trump's appearance

    Riffs on Trump's orange face and notes having joked about him for 40 years as fellow New Yorkers.

  4. Direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertisements

    Critiques ads directing medically untrained viewers to ask doctors for specific major drugs, questioning when television became people's primary physician.

How it plays

Tone
Irate, frustrated, satirical, and apocalyptic.
On stage
The 'king of the rant' and practitioner of frustrated optimism, known for twitchy agitation, explosive rants, and deploying comic condemnation with frequent profanity.
Pace
Volcanic build-ups twitchily rumbling up to eruptive punchlines, yelling with intense emotional charge.
About
COVID-19 anxiety and lockdowns, Two-day free shipping, Science deniers and climate change, Political incompetence, Pharmaceutical advertising, Donald Trump

What the critics said

Praised as a surprisingly strong and eerily prescient apocalyptic time capsule capturing Black's trademark rage and volcanic build-ups in top form.

In the room: An unmic'd crowd of approximately 1,500 people carrying the heightened, nervous energy of having their last big night out before lockdown.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: en.wikipedia.org, lewisblack.com, tv.apple.com, allmovie.com, ny1.com, simkl.com, vice.com, 800poundgorillamedia.com, imdb.com.

Backstory

Filmed on sovereign Native American land on Friday, March 13, 2020, directly on the brink of the nationwide COVID-19 pandemic lockdown as live entertainment across the country was shutting down.

Details

Released
Taped
Four Winds New Buffalo Casino, New Buffalo Township
Runtime
63 min
Where
Prime Video
Director
Benjamin Brewer
Honors
Nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album
Topics
Before
Black to the Future (2016)
After
Tragically, I Need You (2023)

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