Live 2002
Columbia Records · 2002 · 1 h 55 min
A hyperactive return to the stage fueled by adrenaline and bottled water.
Robin Williams treats the stage like a marathon route, practically vibrating with exertion while tearing through an unrelenting stream of consciousness. He sweats through his shirt almost immediately, chugging from a small army of water bottles stationed on a table beside him and occasionally pouring them out as props. His delivery is deeply physical, jumping between characters, accents, and historical tangents before the crowd can fully process the previous punchline.
Filmed at the Broadway Theatre in 2002, the performance served as the final stop of a 26-city tour and marked his return to stand-up after a sixteen-year hiatus. The material leans heavily on the post-9/11 political climate, touching on Anthrax, the Bush administration, and homeland security. The set is best remembered for a long, increasingly manic bit about golf being invented by drunken Scotsmen as a cruel, masochistic joke.
Critics were somewhat split on the final product. Reviewers at outlets like the AV Club felt the hour relied too heavily on frantic mugging and tired stereotypes, while audiences largely embraced the sheer volume of output from a performer operating at maximum capacity.
The set list
-
The invention of golf by drunken Scottish men
Delivered in a thick Scottish accent, portraying the inventor designing an infuriating game with trees, sand, and tiny gopher holes played with a tire iron.
-
Osama bin Laden and bioterrorism
Mocks the absurdity of failing to catch a six-foot-tall dialysis patient and posits that Keith Richards holds the internal biological immunity to survive anthrax.
-
Olympic athletes and marijuana testing
Ridiculing the classification of marijuana as a performance-enhancing drug for snowboarders, arguing it only aids performance if there is a giant Hershey bar at the finish line.
-
The Grim Rapper
A musical rap routine that satirically examines life, mortality, and death.
-
City-specific jokes and local dialects
Williams tailors specific commentary, local news references, and accents to 20 different tour stops including Atlanta, Chicago, and Milwaukee.
How it plays
- Tone
- Madcap, crude, topical, irreverent, and energetic.
- On stage
- Manic, profane, razor-sharp, and uninhibited, performing with lightning-fast associational wit and a vast repertoire of accents and spontaneous mimicry.
- Pace
- Full hurricane force, high-tempo, non-stop rapid-fire momentum careening breathlessly from premise to premise.
- About
- Politics and terrorism, Aging and turning 50, Religion and scandals, Sports, Sex and bodily functions, Marijuana and drug culture
What the critics said
Universally lauded as proof of Williams's standup comedic genius, with critics praising his devastatingly funny topical commentary, rapid-fire improvisational gifts, and energetic delivery.
In the room: Raucous, hysterically laughing audiences responding with massive enthusiasm across tour cities.
Backstory
Taped during his 2002 North American tour in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the anthrax scare, heightened national security, the 2002 Winter Olympics, and the Enron scandal.
Details
- Released
- Runtime
- 1 h 55 min
- Where
- Columbia Records
- Director
- Peter Asher
- Honors
- Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album (2002)
- Topics
- Before
- Live on Broadway (2002)
More from Robin Williams
-
Live on Broadway
HBO