Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10753 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-02-27
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish
• Number of discs: 1

Synopsis
This programme was filmed over a season of Bill Hicks comedy at the Centaur Theatre during the annual 'Just For Laughs' Comedy Festival in Montreal, Canada. His cynical humour ridicules many of today's serious issues including: George Bush, sex, war, pornography, morality and religion.

Customer Reviews

The VHS version was better
Bill Hicks was a hilariously funny man and if you haven't come across his stuff before then this will blow your socks off. From UFOs to the debate between drugs and alcohol to the Kennedy assassination and the first Gulf War, nobody is safe from Hicks anger and wit. If you're already a Hicks fan then ignore this DVD and go out and find yourself the VHS version of this show.

Its not the recording quality that annoyed me although it is bad. The producers have put a disclaimer on the start of it explaining that a copy of this performance was hard to find and the quality of one chapter in particular is poor. I don't care if it looks fuzzy, an overweight bespectacled Hicks prowling a dark stage with a microphone is not visually stimulating even in the best definition. You buy it for his material and delivery, not his choice of turtleneck.

What does spoil this DVD is that its a different and poorer performance of the same show released in the 1990s on VHS. Both were recorded at the same comedy festival but clearly on seperate nights. The material is similar but lacks some of the punch, some jokes are toned down or missed out, Hicks is not on the top of his game. Why the producers could not remaster the VHS version I don't know. Enough people seem to own one. If they're really stuck they can borrow mine. But I'd like it back afterwards so I can enjoy a master at work

buyer beware
True to say that this is a great and iconic performance that had me watching open mouthed when it was first broadcast (my first experience of Hicks) but, that said, this is indeed a disappointment.

Not only is the quality of the image in part of the show ghastly (as noted by a previous reviewer and only acknowledged by the makers of the DVD once you put the disc on) but it is quite heavily and clumsily edited - 60 minutes as opposed to the 75 quoted on the sleeve. The VHS version is superior if you can still find it.

That much over used word...Genius but in this case it,s true
In a perfect world there wouldn't be a need for someone like me to urge other people like me to buy "Relentless" But then if the world was perfect there wouldn't really be a need for Bill Hicks which in turn would make the world less than perfect. Mind you even in a world without stupidity, avarice and hypocrisy Hicks would still be funnier than any one else.
Virtually everything Hicks railed against before his tragically premature death from pancreatic cancer in 1994 still holds true today. Wars based on greed, ignorance and lies, religious bigotry and duplicity, Female hypocrisy -Hicks was real good on hypocrisy -censorship, freedom but mainly just the sheer bowel shrivelling idiocy of the human race.
"Relentless "was recorded at the Montreal Comedy Festival in1991. Anything by Hicks is worth your time and money but "Relentless is especially superb. It was coruscating and funny on CD but actually watching Hicks execute his incendiary material is a joy in itself. The guy didn't just have incredible material he could perform as well in his prowling soothsayer for liberty and truth type way.
The comedy in "Relentless" isn't as dark and cruel as some of the stuff he performed later when he realised he might be dying. ( Hicks cancer went into semi- remission at one point but returned more voracious ) and is all the more effective for it's slightly and I mean slightly lighter touch which is bit like saying one black hole is blacker than another but there you go.
Here are some highlights .Bill Hicks always managed to get the last word and I'm not standing in the great mans way : " I'm Bill Hicks and I'm dead now because I smoked cigarettes .Cigarettes didn't kill me-a bunch of non smokers kicked the crap out of me one night- I tried to run, they had more energy than I had. I tried to hide-They heard me wheezing. "
"Did you know that if you play New Kids on the Block records backwards they sound better?.