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Brick Wall Comedy

Whoopi Goldberg Presents Billy Connolly

Billy Connolly

HBO · 1999 · 59 min

Whoopi Goldberg introduces a Scottish storyteller to American audiences.

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Before he was a known quantity in the United States, Billy Connolly needed a proper introduction. Whoopi Goldberg provides it at the top of the show, stepping on stage to champion the Scottish comedian for an American television audience. Once he takes the microphone, Connolly does exactly what made him a massive draw overseas. He tells long, winding stories that somehow never lose their structural integrity. He relies on a hyper-specific brand of observational rambling, spending a solid three minutes detailing a flight to Australia to build an entire narrative out of a sleeping man’s flatulence.

Filmed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for HBO, the half-hour set served as a high-profile platform to break Connolly into the mainstream. The exposure worked, directly leading to his relocation to Los Angeles and his casting as the replacement for Howard Hesseman on the ABC sitcom Head of the Class.

The performance features a bearded Robin Williams visible in the audience and concludes with Goldberg returning to the stage to sing a duet of “I’m a Believer” by The Monkees. Connolly’s solo time operates without a rush to any central punchline. He compares airplane odors to an Errol Flynn movie and recounts an encounter with a lion in Africa, demonstrating his preference for wandering tangents over a rigid script.

The set list

6 bits

  1. People who announce to others that they are going to the toilet.

    Ridicules the unneeded mental image and unnecessary social awkwardness of announcing bathroom visits.

  2. New York City violence and how the city can compete with Hollywood Boulevard.

    Applauds New Yorkers on the violent nature of their city and jokingly draws comparisons to Scotland.

  3. Air travel safety and flights abroad for Comic Relief.

    Recounts personal flight experiences and vents faux outrage demanding higher quality service in the Third World.

  4. Public farting and trying to inconspicuously scratch an itchy rear in public.

    Uses physical reenactments and vocal microphone imitations of different flatulence sounds.

  5. Environmental protests leading to a Nazi uprising in reunified Germany.

    Mocks political and environmental demonstrators with exaggerated Nazi-step walk physical act-outs.

  6. The closer (spoiler). Show it

    The trauma and indignity of being sick and vomiting. closer

    Examines the visceral horror and phobia associated with throwing up.

How it plays

Tone
Outrageous, profane, observational, and irreverent.
On stage
A clean-shaven, uninhibited Scotsman delivering sweary, meandering stories and blending knowing satire of middle-class values with basic toilet humor and mock outrage.
Pace
Meandering and off-the-cuff; flits freely from topic to topic with a customary lack of direction and no pretense of prepared material.
About
air travel and safety, toilet humor and bodily functions, violence in New York City, environmental protests, the trauma of vomiting

What the critics said

Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave it a grade of 'D', panning Goldberg's opening set as a shameless Richard Pryor impersonation and Connolly's performance as lacking punch lines beyond four-letter words in a thick Scottish burr; retrospectively, viewer reviews celebrated Connolly's performance as a tour-de-force of hilarious, unconstrained stand-up.

In the room: Enthusiastic and guffawing, laughing until teary-eyed and fully receptive to Connolly's scatological humor.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: imdb.com, themoviedb.org, episodecalendar.com, filmlovr.com, letterboxd.com, thetvdb.com, watchwhatwhere.com, allmovie.com.

Backstory

Recorded for broadcast on HBO at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, presenting Whoopi Goldberg introducing Scottish comic Billy Connolly to an American television audience.

Details

Released
Taped
Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York
Runtime
59 min
Where
HBO
Director
Ellen Brown
Topics
Before
Billy Connolly's One Night Stand (1998)
After
Live '99 — One Night Stand Down Under and The Best of The Rest (1999)

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