Richard Pryor - Live in concert [DVD]

Today Richard Pryor’s legacy as a brilliant stand-up comedian has been overshadowed by the mostly mediocre movies he churned out in the 1980s. He is now best known by some as Gene Wilder’s sidekick, and for such atrocities as The Toy. This is a travesty of the same magnitude as the fact that Frank Sinatra is now identified mostly with ‘My Way’ and ‘New York, New York’.This profanity-laden, feature-length, 1979 stand-up concert film - recorded in front of a largely white audience in California’s Long Beach – shows where he is really at. Over an hour-and-fifteen minutes it captures this fast-talking storyteller, with pitch-perfect timing, at his casual and conversational best. Loose-limbed, shape-shifting impressions of psychotic Doberman, and a prissy lady taking a pee in the woods, are piled atop brutally honest stories about Pryor's life with his father, ranging from his father's death mid-coitus ("he came and went at the same time"), to their time hunting together ("I hated being the dog"). This comedian’s comedian also proves as sharp in lampooning the white-collar whites of suburban America as the alcoholic philosophers of his own dysfunctional backstreets, and is eye-wateringly funny as he recalls the time he got drunk, and blasted his wife's car to pieces with a .44 Magnum. He does it all without falling back on any of his seasoned characters for easy laughs either. (For instance, there are no sermons from Rev. du Rite, or Mudbone monologues, to be found here.)Because of the relatively short running-time of the 18 certificate main feature it has been bundled with some extras trailing other material being issued by Revolver. How much of a bonus are they? Early stand-up footage from 1971, and rare excerpts from his cancelled NBC TV specials, are potentially quite interesting, but at barely 5 minute they are irritatingly brief. There is also a 3000 word biographical booklet that repeats the myth that Pryor had a bit part in the 1968 film The Green Berets (that was actually an older white actor called Richard "Cactus" Pryor).

there are a lot of comedians today who do very big stand up shows that fill out arenas but none of them can keep you continuously laughing for 90 minutes straight. This is why Pryor was without doubt the greatest living stand up. He used his real life to inform the jokes and you could tell he was pulling up some really sad memories from his own life but was using them as stepping stones to build up to a great joke.he was an incredibly talented actor and writer too with a great intellect. he was a trail blazer who set the scene for the likes of Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock but his observational humor seeped into Jerry Seinfeld's stand up too.its so refreshing to see this because nowadays comedians go on tour and repeat the same show over and over and over again all around the world and somewhere along the line its gets very stale and there's only about 30 minutes out of 90 that was actually funny. but with Pryor is was as if he was building on a joke all through the show and the ideas were coming to him there and then. he was a genius in my opinion and if you haven't seen this then you can't say you've seen the funniest stand up ever because you haven't seen Richard Pryor live. buy this

For me, this is the best Richard Pryor concert that I have ever seen.As long as you can stomach jokes about young brothers "low running" away from the police, drug abuse and monkeys having sex etc then you will love this DVDI have so much respect for him to acknowledge his failings in life and turn it into comedy.Undiluted black comedy at its best.Yes persons such as Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Cedric, Steve Harvey and now Kevin Hart have taken black comedy to a new high but it all started with Richard Pryor (and Red Fox)Big up to Richard Pryor for giving a shout out to the original "Black Panther", Huey P Newton who was in the crowd

If you even vaguely like stand up comedy, you should get this, it is regarded by industry insiders, other comics and true fans of genius as one of the finest, groundbreaking shows ever performed. Compared to the mediocre 7/10 glut of stand up 'comedians' that seem to be making the never-ending journey from the poor 'Mock the Week' studio to the ever-diluting Apollo Theatre at Hammersmith, buy this DVD and realise what a real craftsman of comedy can do. Essential.

What can I say - excellent fun and though dated to the time, laugh out loud moments and he's on top of his game! A must buy for any fan - if you already haven't brought this?A good introduction to Pryor at his best!!

one of the best stand up shows i have ever seen i remember seeing this years ago and finding it hilarious and i bought it again and it is safe to say a constant stream of laughter throughout the whole dvd.defiantly one for the collection.

Awesome and hilarious

It doesn't matter how many times I watch this there is always something that Pryor says or does that I'm seeing it for the first time and laugh at to tears - he was one of the truly great performers.