DVD review

Bill Maher is one of America’s foremost topical comedians. Which is why it is so baffling that this DVD has been released in Britain now – more than four years after it was recorded. The political landscape in the States has changed so much since then, it makes a mockery of his news-based routines. ‘We know who won the election,’ he says resignedly at the start. Although it would seem he doesn’t, as it prompts a typically corrosive diatribe about the newly re-elected George Bush. Obama is mentioned only in passing in the audience Q&A that’s included only as an extra.

There’s lots more irrelevancies to get through, too: social services reform, Ronald Regan’s funeral, and gags about Strom Thurmond, Jeff Gannon and John Ashcroft that will be lost on most Britons. And Maher’s misguided assertion that Tony Blair took a strong moral lead over Iraq’s invasion will stick in the craw even more.

Get through this, though, and Maher’s incisive wider philosophies are easier to identify with. He is brilliantly astute, especially when bemoaning the state-sponsored mollycoddling that comprises modern health and safety laws, or nailing his Republican opponents for their dogged insistence that their personal opinions be enshrined in law. As someone else might have said: Freedom, my arse.

Like a lot of political comedians, there’s often more message than gags, though, even if the message is rarely less than brilliantly expressed. So many times does this sound like a Democrat rally that you half-expect red, white and blue balloons to descend from the ceiling at the end. It is, however, heartening to see that an intelligent, liberal atheist can muster such healthy, if partisan, support, giving lie to certain American stereotypes that the vocal Bible-basher protesting vehemently outside the theatre seems determined to fulfil.

That’s not to say Maher isn’t fully aware of this. Again in the Q&A he’s asked if his comedy ever makes a difference. No, he says, and any comedian who thinks that is on an ego trip. ‘You attract people who think like you,’ he says of his audiences. ‘We’re just masturbating here.’

Maher is a compelling orator who makes his polemic engaging to hear; with valid points brought up succinctly and convincingly. You’ll agree quietly with his interesting opinions, and raise a smile at many of the hypocricies he highlights. Laughing uproariously, though, is probably of the agenda.

Time: 99mins
Certficate: 15
Recorded At: Portland, Orgeon. March 25, 2005
Extras: Behind-the-scenes (6min 21sec of pointless arriving-at-theatre footage); Q&A (11min 29s of entertaining chit-chat from the theatre)
Released today by Revolver Entertainment, priced £12.99. Click here to buy from Amazon at £7.48

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

Published: 20 Jul 2009