American: the Bill Hicks story

Bill Hicks, one of America's professionally "angry" stand-up comedians followed paths cut by Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor and, less acerbically, Woody Allen and Robin Williams. The first documentary-cum-biography of Hicks has been made made by Brits; their American: the Bill Hicks Story clearly admires a hard-working heavy-smoking comic who died of pancreatic cancer at the age of only 32 in 1994.

The British connection may explain the willingness of Hicks' family members to cooperate with TV documentary-makers Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas.

After his first overseas appearance (at Montreal's annual comedy festival), Hicks toured Britain during 1991-2, gaining big theatre audiences, TV specials and an international reputation for provocative comic monologues. The Georgia-born Texan returned to the USA with renewed self-confidence both personally and in his stage routines.

Working with family movies, photographs and paste-on backdrops and illustrations, the documentary-makers created a fairly original South Park-style animated biography. The "commentary" and biographical data are provided through off-screen reminiscences by family members and friends. Maybe their cooperation was counter-productive, as the Hicks presented to us looks and sounds sanitised and hollow, an unformed character lacking a sexual life, financial problems and professional conflicts.

There's no clear evidence how and why Hicks switched from family jokes to sharp social and political commentaries, leading a viewer to suspect that he was mainly following market trends in his chosen career. He and his best school friend, both from strict Protestant families, decided to become stand-up comics at 13 and later developed their musical talents too in bands and song-writing. Hicks was a veteran comedy club performer in Los Angeles by the age of 19 and his passage to the top of the stand-up ranks appears almost too easy to be true.

The story of the censorship of his 12th and final David Letterman routine is noted, without amplifying that its mildly anti-religious jokes were the cause. One running battle is ignored completely: the plagiarism of Hicks' style and material by Denis Leary.

This bio fails to clarify why it entitled itself "American". Maybe Hicks was thought to be a typical non-university white non-Jewish comic from the suburbs, which is where most of his appreciative home-country audiences lived, but no conclusions are led to or drawn. Most disappointing, though, is the selection of extracts from Hicks' taped performances.

They show the comic's superb timing and audience control, but the material doesn't amuse or shock enough to be memorable. The Hicks we're shown lacks the reputed black humour and satire. Without them, he looks as average as this bio of him.