Rich Hall has been around our comedy consciousness for some time now (his Otis Lee Crenshaw won the Perrier Award at Edinburgh in 2000) and whether he’s on TV with QI, doing standup, or presenting documentaries — where he showcased his fine musical taste — Hall has always proved enjoyable company. You could say he’s reached “classic album” territory in terms of judging his work and legacy, so now is as good a time as any for a memoir.
Hall started out in 1978, and from Nailing It! you understand that a comedy career (founded on obvious talent) is a series of ballsy leaps of faith, unwavering conviction and a lot of luck: initially stepping out at colleges with a one-man show; moving to 1970s New York city with its Travis Bickle tang in order to crack the clubs alongside Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David; an opportunity for developing his writing on the David Letterman show; dipping a toe in the shallow end of movies (the film was so bad, Hall said, he tried to kill off his own character early on). Or arriving at the Edinburgh Fringe unaware of the festival’s flavour and standing — before realising the need to fully forge his act in its comedy furnace, which in turn helped him settle in his comic skin on this side of the Atlantic. (“Maybe I had spent the last seventeen years doing the right comedy for the wrong people?”)
Hall is good company once again, writing with wise-cracking, conversational ease. He’s on the right side of being frank, tangential and self-effacing in telling the tale; cutting when needed, and most importantly, funny. It’s not rip-roaring funny — Hall’s flavoursome drawl with an audio book might yet push it into that realm — but it will have you chuckling throughout with its amusing collection of well-spun yarns: being placed in a headlock by Lemmy, going Spinal Tap on a night covering The Who, or reluctantly shooting the breeze in Winnebago land with a couple who are fugitives from justice, to reference a few. We get plenty of the comedy circuit in Nailing It! But we have glimpses into Hall’s family and history, too. In fact, Hall’s wife, Karen, has many of the killer lines and laugh-out-loud moments. Aw heck, Hall might say.
