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Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere

Doug Stanhope

Roadrunner Records · 2011 · 89 min

A hostile, unrehearsed set recorded in an abandoned Norwegian sewing factory.

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Doug Stanhope opens Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere from behind a desk with a pint of beer, directly telling the camera that the next hour is going to be rough. He spends the introduction pulling back the curtain on the artificiality of modern comedy specials, specifically calling out audience warm-ups and smash-cut editing. He then explains his manager gave him two days of notice to record this performance in a former sewing machine factory in Norway, complete with folding chairs and an audience whose first language isn’t English. Stanhope calls the resulting product “real as shit,” setting the baseline for an actively hostile recording environment.

The 2011 release captures a comedian openly exhausted by his own career. Throughout the set, Stanhope pauses to question why he is even bothering to tape the performance and wonders how much longer he can stay on the road. The premises lean heavily into misanthropy. He argues that ugly people face more discrimination than any established minority group, dragging Susan Boyle into the equation to make his point. He also takes aim at his peers, contrasting his own genuine anger with the safe premises of Jerry Seinfeld and dismissing Pablo Francisco as “one man, one joke, spread out over 15 years”.

The set list

5 bits

  1. Royalty and dead people's baggage

    Berates Norwegians for tolerating monarchy and renounces heritage and tradition as dead people's baggage that people should stop carrying.

  2. Abortion Is Green

    Proposes abortion as an eco-friendly measure and characterizes people having children as the biggest threat to the environment.

  3. Ugly Woman Who Could Sing

    Argues that physically unattractive people are an oppressed majority who lack civil rights representation and advocacy.

  4. First Midget Bullfighter

    Uses an unusual scenario to address the progress of racial relations in the Obama era.

  5. Spinning Dildo

    Constructs an extreme, absurd shock scenario of an inverted man in a straitjacket drinking castor oil to lubricate a torture device.

How it plays

Tone
Dark, cynical, confrontational, crass, and profane.
On stage
Gruff, abrasive, kamikaze, and bluntly uninhibited drunken philosopher.
Pace
Unhinged, spontaneous, and loose, interspersed with pauses due to the language barrier and punctuated by coughing fits.
About
monarchy and tradition, environmentalism and population control, appearance and societal discrimination, cultural differences between Europe and the US, career decline and self-disgust, sex and relationships

What the critics said

Received mixed-to-positive reviews; some critics applauded the unvarnished, authentic documentation of a raw, unpredictable road gig, while others found the lack of rehearsal and complaints about cameras grating.

In the room: Rowdy yet at times hesitant and muted due to jokes crossing an English-as-a-second-language barrier.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: allmusic.com, imdb.com, heebmagazine.com, wearemoviegeeks.com, chortle.co.uk, shockya.com, thecomedybureau.com, underthegunreview.net, en.wikipedia.org, huffpost.com.

Backstory

Filmed on only 36 hours' notice in an abandoned sewing machine factory converted into a former Nazi bunker in Grünerløkka, Oslo, performing an unrehearsed set before a crowd speaking English as a second language.

Details

Released
Taped
2009, Fabrikkhallen, Oslo
Runtime
89 min
Where
Roadrunner Records
Director
Bjørn Opsahl
Honors
#1 on the US Billboard Comedy Albums chart#2 on the US Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart
Topics
Before
No Refunds (2007)
After
Beer Hall Putsch (2013)

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