Please let it be the Great Man just being a bit rusty. There are comedians, there are fine comedians, there are the very best comedians and then, as Don Bradman is to cricket, there is Billy Connolly. If his edge is going, I suspect that he will be the first person to be aware of this and will step down with grace.

*edit* Just watched the YouTube clip. My sides hurt now. And I've had to wipe tears away.

I love Billy. Saw him in the mid-nineties and he was absolutely on fire. I don't think I've ever seen him NOT funny (apart from in kids' films). So I hope you're wrong, I hope he was just having an off night.

But I suppose everyones' fire has to go out sometime.

He's a rare genius in the simplest of art forms: a man and a microphone (and the occasional banana boots, sure).

I don't think there's any other comedian that stirs my soul like Billy Connolly. I have a soft spot for Phil Kay (another Glaswegian: not sure if he has ever broached the national consciousness?).

And he was dire.

So it might be that at times he's just lazy.

although the Grauniad gave it 4 stars.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/jan/06/billy-connolly-first-night-r...

But The Telegraph echoing what you said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/comedy/6942107/Billy-Connolly...

I'm seeing him in a week or so, when hopefully he will be settled in or slowly drowning.

bc

loved it. 4 stars.

... had several Connolly LPs when I were a lad, including one or two on the Transatlantic label which are probably worth a bob or two now, so I suppose I sort of grew up with BC. When I was working the summer season in Newquay in 1980, some friends took me to St. Austell for my birthday to see Billy in concert. It was no exaggeration to say I walked out of the auditorium after a couple of hours with my sides & stomach aching from laughing so much. I'd like to remember him like that.

and he was bloody awful.I felt embarrassed for him.You could hear a pin drop.Maybe his biorhythm count was down and out.

the live footage on his south bank show was as funny as cancer.
i say this as a fan. his mid 80's 'wreck on tour' is one of my all time faves.

....he was trying to prove he was funny. After a while he had to prove he was *still* funny, which is a different thing altogether. As with so many comedians, this desperation manifested itself in a greater and greater use of profanity. Hate to say this but when he first emerged you couldn't do that on the TV and therefore he didn't do that on the TV.

I laughed so hard I thought I was going to have breathing difficulties. This was in a show where he deliberately set out to offend at the start, laying into religions of all kinds and testing the audience with the infamous Ken Bigley routine (and this was well before that material became a press scandal).
The Guardian review suggests that he is deliberately avoiding controversy this time, which seems a shame, and rather defeats the point of Billy.

There was a whole rash of those regional comedians who made the transition from the folk scene in the late 60s/early 70s - Connolly, Carrott, Max Boyce, Mike Harding - every region seemed to have one.

I was living in the West Midlands in the early 70s and Carrott was a local legend - surreal rants about local radio and football in a Brummie accent. He made a couple of well-recieved live albums but was then absorbed into the mainstream.

Seeing as some folks are expressing some misgivings about The Big Yin I'll just say that last night I made my way to London's Union Chapel to see Daniel Kitson.

I've seen him before at the Edinburgh Fringe but was especially excited this time round because I had persuaded Mrs Ganglesprocket to come along, having spent a few years now going on to people I know about how he's "the best comic of his generation," "a total genius" and "knocks everyone I've ever seen into a cocked hat, only Jerry Sadowitz comes close and its like comparing apples and pears you know, comparing Kitson and Sadowitz." You get my drift, I'm a fan.

He spoke for two hours about death. It was hysterically funny and extremely touching in places. Mrs Ganglesprocket howled like a banshee during the filthy bits, the scene where he described eating a knickerbocker glory alone and in tears in Scarborough during half term in front of various families has me filling up with tears and laughing at the same time just remembering it now and his ability to refer back to little things mentioned early on in the set is wonderful. He's brave, confident and skillful enough to not continually chase laughs, and he really does bring home to me how powerful one person talking well can be. All this from a man with a stammer.

As far as I know Kitson has never done a TV panel show. His dedication to his artistry as a stand up reminds me of Edie Izzard when he started to break through. I have seen a lot of indifferent comedy in my time. Last night though, was brilliant.

...and confirms what a few people have told me over the years.

I'm a big Big Yin fan, but only via the TV, videos and (yes!) my almost complete collection of Billy vinyl from the seventies*.

Anyway, I was one of the many people who tried in vain to get tickets to see his four (or was it five?) night run at Edinburgh's Usher Hall back in August. And failed. However, maybe I got off lightly.

I too have seen the decline of his stand-up over the past few releases, and whilst I'm always willing to let Billy's off-moments slide, the real genius moments are getting all-too rare...

Maybe he's just to comfortable and settled in his self, and simply treading water a bit. Maybe the fire has gone out from his comedy, on the basis that perhaps neither needs the money nor the hassle of touring, and maybe this is just a sign of how that plays out...

john

* all purchased via record fairs over the years; too young to have been buying it as and when it came out.

...loves Billy Connolly. It's the law.

... and I'll extend your area to cover the entire Scottish central belt.

...She Bangs the Kildrums; Carbrain Salad Surgery; I Can Seafar Miles.

I could go on...

I was more of a Papa Docs man that a Reflections man I must confess. But I haven't been since it rebranded as PD II's.

Ah, Papa Docs. The idea that I used to actually queue to get in, through CHOICE. Shudder. Once through its gates, we were treated to a diet of Hue and Cry, Wet, Wet, Wet and Endgames if we were lucky(!) I went many years later while visiting the Nod for a wedding and TFF seemed to be the high-watermark of the day.

Reflections was rebranded as Sax some time in the late-80s, I think, but I never darkened its faux-jazz club doors.

you are talking to the near leg end that was Hell Death + Breakfast's bass player here.
Never lived there (thankfully) but worked for 4 years as a designer for the dev. co.
Dreadful place, great people and so many guid memories! :D

They got on Channel 4 you know...

Who?