Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere

Stanhope is still funny, but just the shadow of his best shows. At the times it is depressing, because he looks like washed-up drunk who doesn't care about anything anymore, and isn't even trying to be entertaining for the audience. Good thing he bounced back up with his later special, Beer Hall Putsch.

Doug Stanhope, knocking on lung cancers door, drinks 7 unedited drinks and talks to Norwegians about their unscented vagina's and other cultural musings.

Probably would have been better if it wasn't so raw. Doesn't matter that he pre-apologizes for the sucky parts. He could have had some fanboy edit the shitty parts out for free. But there was definitely some decent material in there... for Doug Stanhope. Also, it seems like Louis CK borrow a lot from this act in his 2013 special Oh My God.

Hm. This is the weakest Stanhope show I have seen. High on pussy jokes, low on scathing social satire. Has my personified faith in humanity finally succumbed to bitterness, alcohol and apathy? Oh God! And am I next?!

Very funny man.

He starts off a little wooden for about 5 minutes but even with that subtracted this is still substantially longer than pretty much any stand-up special by anybody. And once he gets rolling after the first 5 minutes he doesn't stop. He is seriously fucked up and fantastic. Just play minesweeper or something over the screen though because the camera men majorly suck. They suck to the point Stanhope even has to acknowledge it in the middle of the show.

Aside from the horrendous camera-work, the loose editing, and just the general wonky technical details (all of which is assuaged by Stanhope in the introduction), this is a pretty good set from him; like with his others he gets better (as he gets more drunk?) as he goes through, and his conversational encore is also a blast. Not hugely funny, but hugely entertaining, and often depressingly thought-provoking (in the crudest manner).

This is, by Doug's own on-stage admission, an odd venue for an obscure American stand-up to film a DVD - and the patchy reception he gets from the crowd validates the statement. But it also allows Stanhope to be at his most natural and rail about more general irritants in his life: observational comedy, his lagging sex-drive, Susan Boyle, 'tourists of life'.. all with the same self-awareness and tongue-in-cheek we've come to expect. More trivial than most of his stuff, but remains very funny.