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“Chris Rock the compère is compelling company, even on subjects such as cross-dressing basketball players that border on the obscure to the British viewer,” says Ed Potton of The Times.

From 1997 to 2000, America’s most acerbic stand-up comic hosted this Emmy Award-winning weekly sketch show on HBO.

It quickly became the ‘water-cooler’ show of its time, with no sector of society safe from Chris’s barbs.

Rock’s targets range from politicians to the gay community and single mothers – black and white alike.

Bill Cosby publicly reprimanded Rock for satirising black society, but he was hailed by Time magazine as “the funniest man in America.”

Possessed of an extraordinary combination of charm, charisma, anger and street smarts, Rock has been voted as the fifth greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central.

“The Chris Rock Show was a bona-fide comedy sensation,” says Scott Weinberg of DVD Talk.

“Full of social satire, racial deflations, and outright silliness, the show beat [evergreen US sketch show] Saturday Night Live at its own game.”

Supported by a seriously funny cast that included Wanda Sykes, Mario Joyner, and Lance Crouther, Rock delivers many unforgettable sketches, but his greatest moments come when he takes to the streets live and interviews ‘normal folks’ on a variety of volatile issues.

On one memorable occasion, he manages to convince the inhabitants of a middle class white district to rename a local street Tupac Shakur Boulevard.

“Rock’s intelligent, thought-provoking comedy is light years beyond the norm,” concluded David Johnson of DVD Verdict.

1997 | Comedy | HBO | 30 minutes

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Tags: Chris Rock, HBO, On Demand, reviews, stand-up comedy, The Chris Rock Show

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