In his 2023 special Now More Than Ever John Early stalks the stage in leather trousers with microphone in hand and his band, The Lemon Squares, backing him as he sings.
The footage is shot with a hazy reverence, the kind employed by Martin Scorsese in The Last Waltz and subsequently became a visual shorthand for anyone looking to ape their classic rockumentary vibe.
If you didn’t know better you’d swear Early was a Mumford-style troubadour, a whiskey-drinking ho-hey stomper about to seduce the audience with a rustic singalong.
This, however, is Early - arguably the most influential comedian of his generation whose skewering of millennials' most self-centered and self-promoting foibles has seen him steal scenes in shows such as Search Party and Netflix’s I Think You Should Leave.
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