AN interesting comment was posted on the Guardian website recently in response to a negative review of Scottish comedian Billy Connolly’s latest travel series Route 66.
‘‘Billy is more philosopher and poet than comic these days,’’ it said. The viewer was right. A glance at Connolly’s four-part series – which follows the veteran stand-up on the 4000 kilometre (2488 mile) drive from Chicago to Santa Monica – confirms it. While Connolly’s earlier ‘‘world tour’’ programs, beginning with 1994’s World Tour of Scotland, were full of cutting-edge stand-up comedy, manic energy and bleeped-out swearing, Route 66 is not.
These days Connolly, who turns 70 this year, is far more mellow. Instead of cracking quips about everything he encounters on his journeys, the comedian is often reflective. It makes for a more balanced program – one that will appeal not only to Connolly’s fans, but to those with even a passing interest in the travelogue genre.
The comedian explains that he has wanted to travel on Route 66 since he was a ‘‘wee lad in Glasgow’’. After all, ‘‘how many other roads do you know that people sing about?’’
Connolly has always had an inate ability to get people to open up to him. That was evident in Sunday night’s show as he travelled from St Louis to Oklahoma City on his motor-trike, in the second of the series.
In St Louis, he visited Robbie Montgomery’s famous Sweetie Pie’s restaurant, home of ‘‘real soul food”. Montgomery, a former backing singer for Ike and Tina Turner, talked Connolly through her diverse career over a bowl of mac and cheese.
Along the way, he fed wolves at an endangered wolf centre, donned camouflage gear to hunt wild turkeys (though the former vegetarian later confessed he was ‘‘absolutely delighted they got away’’) and met a collector with the world’s largest booty of lap steel guitars.
Connolly is at his best when talking to the locals he meets off the beaten track; he’s funny, warm and genuinely interested in their stories and lives. Next week, he hits Texas, New Mexico and Arizona en route to California. Philosopher? Poet? Comic? It doesn’t matter when the show is this entertaining.
Billy Connolly’s Route 66 screens Sundays at 7.30pm.
