1977-08-24
N/A
77 min
Billy Connolly was, in the 1970s, a sort of Scottish Lenny Bruce, who, with devastating humour, sliced through the hypocrisies he perceived. This 1976 documentary follows the singer-comic during his 1975 Irish tour. Made in a cinema verité fashion, the performer appears to be completely unaware of the presence of the camera in his off-stage and backstage moments.
If you've grown up in Glasgow, you'll know that Sectarianism in this city is still pretty rife - even now, but not so much as in the mid 1970s. It's not surprising, therefore, that after a successful slot on the popular BBC "Parkinson" chat show, Connolly - possibly the world's only professional Glaswegian - sets off on a three gig tour of the Emerald Isle. With the "troubles" only gaining in momentum, he goes on stage trying to bring his unique form of quirkily written folk music, earthy observational humour and jokes about his willie to audiences that react with varying degrees of... let's say "friendship". Trained as a welder on the Clyde, Connolly is no slouch when it comes to defending himself from the cowardly hecklers sniping from the darkness, and his friendly wit appears to go down well with most of his audiences, if less effectively with the rather staid collection of journalists who turn up for pre-show interviews with little knowledge or interest in the man or his story. This isn't Billy Connolly at his best, but it's certainly him at his most natural as he thinks on his feet delivering pithy tales from his childhood and career so far that works simplistically well set against a backdrop of industrial decline and rising fervour.
