I first saw Andy Zaltzman in 2004 , Celtic had just beaten Barcelona and Shaikh Yassin had just been assassinated , oh and the Madrid Bombings.
A brave man made light and comedy of the situation unlike much of the audience , well two hecklers who , having gone through the rigmarole of buying tickets for a night of comedy suddenly developed a faux mocked outraged drunken offence.Admirable , was that Andy was a signatory of the Jews for Justice for Palestinians and , remember there was a full blown intifada going on at the time, held fundraiser evenings for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.This was when he was far from "making it" and could have taken a less principled road to success by getting short of the politics and taking the least resistance path to the observational dollar.
Today Andy has "made it" , and has still not forgotten those less fortunate , he will be doing a fundraiser for Gaza later in the month.
The name of his Fringe residency show is 'Andy Zaltzman Swears To Tell The Truth, Half The Truth, And Everything But The Truth.A "thesis" as he describes himself , about the non-truth and lies you hear from politicians and media.
A very funny and accomplished show fulfilling the promise from 6 years back.
Below is an example of his understated dry witty penetrating humour , when addressing some young lawyers:
Thanks for the review of Andy Zaltzman's 2010 Edinburgh show. I know him primarily from The Bugle, and although he has promoted his Edinburgh show on the podcast, he never went into details on how his performance was received.
ReplyDeleteAlthough The Bugle is now behind The Time's pay wall, The Bugle is still available from iTunes, still for free. Unfortunately, it has been cancelled this week.
Peter in Chicago