Ray Peacock chooses the life of Lenny Bruce
Great Lives
BBC
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2016
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
To his followers Lenny Bruce was a genius and a free speech hero. To his detractors he was labelled sick and dirty. Bruce shocked his audiences intentionally. In his uncompromisingly frank humour he took on organized religion, government, jingoism, capitalism, the death penalty, war, and sexual mores.
But he was eventually destroyed by the battle he fought with the US justice system.
The comedian, Ray Peacock nominates Lenny Bruce as his great life as he regards him as a pioneer in stand-up. Along with expert Dr Oliver Double and presenter Matthew Parris they uncover a controversial life.
To illustrate the life of Lenny Bruce this programme does play some audio which some listeners may find offensive.
The producer is Perminder Khatkar.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Great Lives is a download from Radio Fall. |
| 0:02.8 | We hope you enjoy what you're about to hear. |
| 0:05.5 | To his followers, Lenny Bruce was a genius and a free speech |
| 0:09.2 | hero. |
| 0:10.2 | His detractors called him sick and dirty. |
| 0:13.2 | In his uncompromisingly frank humour, he took on organized religion, |
| 0:17.4 | government, jingoism, capitalism, the death penalty, |
| 0:20.3 | the US justice system, war, |
| 0:23.0 | mores, almost everything. |
| 0:25.0 | He antagonised almost everyone, |
| 0:27.0 | attacking every sacred cow of the 50s and 60s |
| 0:30.0 | from his underdog perspective. He was eventually destroyed by the battles he fought. |
| 0:36.9 | On the 3rd of August 1966, the radical comedian was found dead in the bathroom of his Los Angeles home the victim of a drug |
| 0:44.7 | overdose. But the 40-year-old had revolutionized stand-up comedy helping create a genre in |
| 0:51.4 | which outspoken comedians like Ray Peacock who is championing |
| 0:55.4 | Lenny Bruce can work. |
| 0:57.0 | Ray, it was your obsession with another comic, Bill Hicks, which led you to discover Lenny Bruce. |
| 1:04.0 | So why Bruce and not Hicks? |
| 1:06.0 | I was a big fan of Hicks and I thought at the time I was the only fan of Hicks in this country, |
| 1:10.0 | and then I started hearing this thing, he's like Lenny Bruce, he took it all from Lenny Bruce. |
| 1:14.8 | So I went and found Lenny Bruce. |
| 1:16.6 | And it was an odd thing really, because it wasn't accessible to me. |
... |
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