Review by Steve Bennett

Resurrecting the revered Bill Hicks ten years after his death is either a very shrewd move, or a very foolish one. The presence of such an iconic name in the title is sure to shift tickets for curiosity value alone, but meddling with his sainted memory is a risky business.

Chaz Early is the man who's taken the plunge, the first performer to admit to impersonating Hicks, even though countless stand-ups have been accused of it. So, after a brief introduction as himself, he emerges from a wall of smoke in character: tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be Bill Hicks

First impressions bode well: he looks enough like him to be believable, and has the captured the voice perfectly. It's the spirit that proves a lot more difficult to nail down.

Though listed as a theatre show, Early has very little theatrical excuse for raising the dead. Many previous shows have used long-gone comedy heroes as dramatic devices, but this is simply an hour-long impersonation of what Early thinks Hicks would be like today.

The problem is, he's mimicing the Hicks of a decade ago or more ago, in that brief period in which he capitalised on his long-overdue acclaim at Edinburgh appearances before cancer claimed his life. And if nothing else, Hicks was of the moment. Although his work still sounds contemporary, his fans would surely like to think he would have evolved in ten years, had he stuck around.

But what he would be like to day is impossible to call. So instead, we get the rhythms and feel of the old recordings, but applied to modern topics ­ Internet porn, Coldplay, Abu Ghraib jail and so on. And the George Bush material Hicks was performing during the last Gulf War hardly needs that much updating.

The problem is, the script isn't good enough, certainly too weak to be a stand-up routine in its own right. There are a few good gags, and it's all consistent with Hicks' sensibilities, but just doesn't quite come off. One thing Hicks would never do is work to silence, yet that's what happens here, as the audience gives hushed reverence to an admittedly strong performance, rather than laugh at the jokes.

It promises "a unique insight into the life and opinions of a comedy legend" - but there's nothing here you couldn't pick up from a CD. Hicks was hardly shy about sharing his opinions.

There is something of a message about comfortable, middle-class liberals enjoying Hicks' work to delude themselves they're not part of the very system he was railing against, but it doesn't amount to all that much.

And at one point, Early's Hicks rails against his family for cashing in on the comic's name by releasing a seemingly relentless tide of recordings and books ­ which seems more than a bit rich.

Slight Return is supposedly a tribute to a stand-up legend, but the best tribute you could pay him is to watch any one of several passionate comics still working at thought-provoking stuff today, rather than a watered-down copycat of a brilliant man.

Review date: 1 Jan 2004
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett