Robin Williams is a fucking
\ngenius<\/i>. Let’s get that out in the open right here and now.
\nSure, in his career as an actor, he’s had a few movies which could
\nbest be described as “forgettable”, but at least they paid the
\nbills and earned Williams time in the school of life – lessons he
\nshowed paid off when he finally won an Academy Award a few years
\nback.<\/p>\n
But maybe I should simplify my opening statement. Let’s try that
\none more time: Robin Williams is a fucking
\ncomedic<\/i> genius. When you boil it all down to the bare bones,
\nWilliams is a standup comic extraordinaire, taking the modern
\nfoibles of life and making us laugh at them, no matter how tragic
\nthey might be.<\/p>\n
\nLive 2002<\/i>, a two-CD set taken from Williams’s first tour in
\n16 years, captures that essence well – but it also reminds us that
\nWilliams is a comic who is best experienced in the flesh.<\/p>\n
If you saw
\nRobin Williams Live On Broadway<\/i> when it aired on HBO, or you
\npurchased the DVD, you won’t have to worry about hearing the exact
\nsame show on this set. Honestly, I can’t hear anything which came
\nfrom the tour-ending show in New York – though I would have liked
\nto have had that set included on the second disc, which features
\nlocal bits from many of Williams’s stops. (More on that later.)
\nSame material, yes – though there are enough nuances in these
\nperformances which differ from the Broadway performance that will
\nkeep things interesting.<\/p>\n
In the wake of the deadly terrorist attacks, Williams could have
\nplayed things safe, but he dares to take the bull (or, in this
\ncase, Osama bin Laden, the anthrax scare and the numerous security
\ncrackdowns) by the horns and mocks it. The thing is, he does so
\nwith such skill that the comedy works – and undoubtedly produces
\nsome well-needed laughter.<\/p>\n
There are no sacred cows in Williams’s beliefs, whether it’s
\nattacking the Catholic Church and its recent scandal, mocking the
\nScottish accent and their invention of golf, or stating his views
\non Viagra and the Olympics. If you’re easily offended – well, let’s
\nface it, you wouldn’t even be on this
\nsite<\/i>, much less be interested in listening to nearly two
\nhours of Williams’s often crude (but wickedly funny) humor.<\/p>\n
The second disc is the most interesting, simply because it’s
\nmaterial that hasn’t been heard elsewhere – that is, unless you
\nwere at those particular performances. From the opening “rap” of
\n“The Grim Rapper” (in which Williams pointedly takes a look at life
\nand death, and how they all are interrelated) to the local bits,
\nWilliams sounds completely at ease in his settings – so much so
\nthat you don’t have to be a resident of Milwaukee, Atlanta or
\nChicago to understand and appreciate some of the local news that
\nWilliams turns into humor.<\/p>\n
\nLive 2002<\/i> is proof positive that you could take Williams off
\nof the stage, but his heart has always remained in the spotlight.
\nIn the slim hope that Williams himself might be directed towards
\nthis review, I have only one question to ask him:<\/p>\n
What the hell took you so long to return to stand-up, Robin?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6795],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-37508","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-robin-williams","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37508"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}