Headline, January02, 2014

''' BILL HICKS : THE LAST OF 

MANY- MANY -MANY LAUGHS '''

The world can never ever forget Bill Hicks. There's never been a more lethally intelligent, acidly articulate stand-up comic than the late Bill Hicks.

And now, the brilliant life and lines of the late comedian are just celebrated in an arresting new documentary.

Amazingly, nobody's ever been more riotously funny either: Hick's only peers in the comedic pantheon   -kindred spirits and taboo-shatterers     -are Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.

But it wasn't just Hick's self-schooled intellect that made him hilarious.

''Please relax,'' he used to assure audiences perplexed by some long riff on  ''cluster bombs''  or Federal law enforcement.

It was Hick's fate to be fiercely adored and hugely influential among the cognoscenti, but to die of pancreatic cancer in 1994, aged just 32   -a terribly untimely demise for a writer and performer who- 

Had already been brilliant, and looked set to get better. Hick's flame,  at least, has been lovingly tended by friends, family and posthumous releases. Now, the documentary features American: The Bill Hicks Story sings of his life in a manner that is stylistically innovative an suitably affectionate.

While employing the familiar device of alienating between talking heads interview with those who knew Hicks best and archive material of the man's finest routines, British directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas have also raided 

The Hicks family snapshot archive, digitising, merging and animating 2D images to make re-enacted  ''scenes from a life''. The style has a graphic-novel feel, and the reviewer quickly delights in it.

By such means, American depicts Hick's childhood in Texas: one more comfortable than his bad-ass rep might permit. His dad worked at General Motors, both parents were sober-sided Southern Baptists.

But Bill's teenage bedroom was a glowing cell of private creativity, and aged 14 he was sneaking out to open-mic comedy clubs in Houston. American offers footage of these early performances: 

I confess, I expected them to be embarrassing. Nope! In his timing and command of a crowd  -even while simply bad-mouthing his   ''parents and teachers''    -Hicks evinced genius from the get-go

.

A true genius of ever there was one, Hicks tried man things. But when he went to try his luck in Los Angeles, where  -incredibly- the man who would in time get laughs out of euthanasia, coprophagia and the ''gooeyness'' of his favourite porn, became known as   ''the clean-cut comic''.

Evidently Hicks, teetotal to this point, realised he had to descend into the gutter. Booze and marijuana unleashed a new savagery in his act, but, as American ruefully shows, he soon had to tuck himself back in, once fans started sending shots of bourbon up to him onstage.

In 1988, Hicks got sober, moved to New York, and for the next five years would be performing five nights a week. Around this point American starts to lean heavily on previously seen concert footage, but it's all good:

Hicks prowling the stage, thinking out loud, scandalising even himself, but always playing the crow like a fiddle.

The honour Post continues:

With respectful dedication to all the student  ''Couch Potatoes'' of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

'''One To Watch'''

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless