Rob Brydon's Identity Crisis

Rob Brydon's Identity Crisis first aired on BBC2 in 2008 but was just recently broadcast and I caught it on  iplayer. Rob Brydon first came to my attention in Gavin and Stacey, it took be a while to realize that I had seen him first in Black Books so talk about different personas! I've gotten to know him more from QI and various other British panel shows and in his partnership with Steve Coogan in  Michael Winterbottom's The Trip and A Cock and Bull Story. Needless to say, I am a fan. Even more so because I've got this strange addiction to the Welsh that my English friends don't understand, well even my American friends don't understand it.

This particular television event was all about Brydon going back to Wales and discovering his identity and playing to a Welsh crowd. It was interesting to see his struggle with his previously held notions about the Welsh being pessimistic when everyone he interviewed said Welsh people were the complete opposite. (My own travel to Cardiff and the customer service I got there was I would have to say the most pleasant in the UK)

The best bit was talking about the Welsh language. James Corden's explanation was brilliant! Now I want to learn Welsh even more that I did before. (Of course my language choices have always been out of left field, American Sign Language, Hindi and now Welsh) The meet of the show was finding out about the Welsh people and their attitudes and then building comedy around that. I think the program showed how fantastic Brydon, and a lot of other comics are at changing the material to suit the crowd and knowing when a joke isn't going to be hit out of the park. (I apologize for all the baseball metaphors they just keep popping to mind) The first show was horrible and you could feel the tension that was in the room. I do have to say that I think Brydon is better doing characters than he is doing himself, although I think he was so uptight and nervous about the risk he was taking by performing for a Welsh audience which he isn't used to might have led to this perception. He's definitely more at ease on QI than he was here, still it was an intriguing program.