Live Uncensored

Mike Reid spent the early nineties as one of Britain’s most recognizable television actors, but away from the cameras, he remained a working-class club comic with a decidedly blue live act. Live Uncensored captures that contrast, putting his gravelly voice and East End mannerisms to work on aggressively adult material that would never make it past a broadcast censor.

Filmed at the Beck Theatre in Hayes in 1992, the set was released directly to VHS. It operates as a straight-down-the-line British club set — a document of an era when a recognizable actor could pack out a theatre just by promising to swear. Reid relies heavily on exaggerated sound effects and observational bits about domestic misery, culminating in an extended routine about the frustrations of hiring a handyman.