Billy Connolly: Live in London 2010

The first new DVD release from The Big Yin in three years is a bare bones affair that merely serves up his latest show recorded in London and nothing more. For the fans there will be little to complain about. However, for the Christmas viewer, much like the proverbial cracker it is solely a paper hat, crap toy and a groan-worthy joke that will be swept away by Boxing Day.

In a poorly edited introduction and shot on a very pale film stock (or degraded digital setting), Scotland's treasured export took up residence at the Hammersmith Apollo (seemingly the new spiritual home of live comedy for those that wish for a slightly more intimate setting that an arena) and the results are contained herein.

There is little doubt that Connolly's undoubted joy lies in the delivery of his often skimpy material. In other hands there would be barely a titter at two exceedingly shaggy dog tales that represent so much of the relatively scant running time, namely a bus journey with a dwarf and a rain soaked traveler that arrives at a couple's house in a storm. Billy, akin to Jimmy Carr on his most recent DVD, indulges in some faux cracking up when the audience are hardly in hysterics with him, but it adds to the charm of the joke-telling rather than detracting from it.

The sense that the show has some kind of through line (like Gervais's pointedly titled releases) has an element of confusion. Connolly is branded as Michelangelo’s Vitruvian Man on both the cover and the stage's backdrop, but is never referred to in either the DVD's title or the show itself.

Sporting a large Maori tattoo and a shock of shaggy hair, it comes as no surprise that a London taxi driver thought he was picking up a big blonde, yet the man still has it and for the devoted or fair-weather fan this release will be a popular stocking filler. Just don't expect it to have much rewatch value.



Released on DVD on 15th November 2010 by Universal Pictures UK.

> Buy the DVD on Amazon.

Reviewed by Simon Cole.