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Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy

Live and in Pieces

Rob Newman & David Baddiel

PolyGram Video · 1993 · 64 min

A massive arena gig that ended a definitive nineties comedy partnership.

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The cultural peak of the “comedy is the new rock and roll” era looks exactly like two guys doing sketch and stand-up in front of 12,000 screaming teenagers while their professional relationship completely disintegrates. Rob Newman and David Baddiel brought their BBC2 series to a live crowd with a mix of dark observational material and character work, playing to an audience that treated them like a boyband.

Filmed at London’s Wembley Arena in December 1993, the gig marked the first time a UK comedy act sold out a venue of that size. The set leans into bits that built their cult following on The Mary Whitehouse Experience, including the “History Today” professors reducing academic debate to playground insults. Newman brings out his Jarvis character, while Baddiel’s solo material focuses on the neuroses of early adulthood.

Behind the scenes, the partnership was entirely fractured. They argued over billing and press access, dealing with extreme tension before formally dissolving the act right after the tour ended. Baddiel went on to mainstream television and football anthems, while Newman pivoted to political activism and literature.

The set list

5 bits

  1. History Today

    Wearing grey wigs, two elderly, academic professors devolve an erudite television history discussion into childish playground insults centered on the catchphrase 'That's you, that is'.

  2. Jarvis Montgomery

    Newman performs as a debauched, smoking jacket-clad predator delivering risqué double entendres and deliberately frustrating the audience's expectation of punchlines.

  3. The People of Restricted Seriousness

    A documentary sketch depicting individuals afflicted with joke-shop facial deformities attending a weekly support group.

  4. Bez from Happy Mondays impression

    Newman integrates contemporary British indie rock references by impersonating dancer Bez from the Happy Mondays.

  5. Calculators and schoolboy crudity

    Baddiel recounts schoolboy attempts to display rude words on pocket calculators alongside jokes about pornography.

How it plays

Tone
A mixture of puerile humor, dark observational themes, schoolboy nostalgia, and indie music culture.
On stage
David Baddiel acts short, lippy, and fast-talking; Rob Newman presents as tall, languid, and detached, slipping into characters like the smoking-jacketed Jarvis.
Pace
Alternates between separate individual stand-up monologues and climactic duo sketch interactions.
About
pornography and sex, schoolboy memories, independent rock music, paranoia and bad times, suicide, Restricted Seriousness

What the critics said

Regarded as both a landmark 1990s live comedy milestone and a dated curio; lauded by Garry Bushell as 'laugh-out-loud funny' and Tony Parsons as 'Hancocks for the Nineties', though criticized by detractors and traditional comics as puerile and pretentious.

In the room: An arena rock-concert atmosphere packed with 12,000 predominantly late-teenage fans and screaming girls, complete with smoke effects and flashy lights.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: themoviedb.org, letterboxd.com, archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk, moviefone.com, en.wikipedia.org, independent.co.uk.

Backstory

Marked the era when comedy was famously dubbed 'the new rock'n'roll'; behind the scenes, Newman and Baddiel had severe personal friction, used separate dressing rooms, and treated Wembley as their final performance together.

Details

Released
Taped
Wembley Arena
Runtime
64 min
Where
PolyGram Video
Director
Steve Bendelack
Topics

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