Brian Longwell

I brought my polititical humor show "Why Vote?" to the Edinburgh, Scotland International Fringe Festival in 2004 as well as other venues in the UK to warm reception. The following are some of the reviews:

To hear audio review in .mp3 format, <click here>. File size approx. 1.43 MB.

THIS is a sweet, smart show, by a sweet, smart man who cleverly uses reductio ad absurdum as his art form. The show is, he tells us - in the part of the show that he insists is not part of the show, "just me talking about the show" - is "an explanation of the American political process". But it is a great deal more entertaining than that sounds. Longwell is cleverly, amiably, calculatedly amateur. He uses, to irresistible comic effect, an old-fashioned projector and a sheaf of wonderfully awful illustrative transparencies - lists, graphs, pie charts and little cartoons, drawn after the style of Purple Ronnie. He deconstructs America, the people and the politics. He makes marvellous sweeping generalisations, is given to surreal analogy and his Biggie Drill solution is giggle-makingly childlike. Longwell has an impressive line in self-deconstruction, which is both fresh and funny. 
                            
                     —KATE COPSTICK - The Scotsman

The most hilarious review of American politics and society I have ever seen. Longwell faces his audience with only his overhead projector and a few handmade slides to aid him, but manages to win the audience over immediately with his charisma and dry comedic style. The show was not the shadow of Fahrenheit 9/11 that I expected, but rather a fresh and light-hearted look at the political landscape of the USA that leaves the audience feeling amused rather than horrified and disempowered. Longwell gets his point across with style and humour and does not rely on over-done Dubya-bashing. 
The show is universally funny but it was clear from the response of the audience that there were extra layers of humour for the Americans watching the show. 

                     —Matthew Straw- Hairline Festival Review

Every year I slip in a few shows that are different. This was certainly one of them. American Brian Longwell delivers a lecture where he explains US foreign policy, with the help of deliberately badly drawn overhead projector slides. Definitely unusual, definitely funny, and definitely good.

                     —Scotsgay

In a festival seemingly swimming with shows lining up to take pot shots at the president everyone loves to hate, Longwell does well to stand out from the crowd in this show. He uses an old-school overhead projector to great effect as he attempts to “turn the tide of hatred against America”. A big job for one comic, but he does his best. He gets big laughs with his theory that Georgie boy views his presidency as an action movie where he is the hero who gets to prove to his dad he is not a screw-up.

                     —Rebecca Thorpe - Comedy Fest

 

Other American performers seemed to be directly keying on a sense of disappointment with the Bush administration's foreign policy; the Boston-area comedian Brian Longwell scored some points with critics for his low-tech, mild-mannered satire which likened American democracy to a pizza shop where voters leave messages on "an answering machine that no one ever listens to."

                     —NY Times

"Loved him to bits!" 

                     —BBC Radio