As you can probably tell from the trail above, we're big fans of Bill Hicks in these parts. The American comedian died 16 years ago but his fearless, force-of-nature style and political sweep remains massively influential, while his stand-up routines often feel strangely prophetic - and massively funny.
The Hicks legacy is captured by American: The Bill Hicks Story, a new and very promising-looking documentary that combines animation, footage of Hicks' stand-up sets and remembrances by ten of the people closest to him. Click below to check out the trailer.
Hicks is mentioned in the same breath as stand-up legends like Lenny Bruce, George Carlin and Richard Pryor, but his polemical style and full-bore assault on American mores set him apart. And by 'mores', we mean everything from corporate greed to redneck ignorance (sample line: "In many parts of our troubled world, people are yelling 'Revolution!'. In Tennessee they're yelling 'Evolution! We want our thumbs!'") to Gulf War 1{
With Russell Crowe rumoured to be planning his own Hicks biopic, American: The Bill Hicks Story is the perfect chance to see how the man himself got it done. It makes its US premiere at the SXSW festival on 12 March before being released in the UK on 14 May.