DAVID BIANCULLI

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BILLY CRYSTAL: 700 SUNDAYS
April 19, 2014  | By David Bianculli

HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET

 

What a glorious treat this is. Billy Crystal starred in this tribute to his parents and family life in 2004, as a limited-run, Tony-winning one-man Broadway show, and revived it a decade later – and during the second run, filmed a pair of performances so that it could be presented, and preserved, as an HBO Comedy Special. Crystal’s performance is a delight from start to finish, but that’s less of a surprise than how well-written, and how effectively and impressive structured, the production itself is. Written by Crystal (with additional material by Alan Zweibel), 700 Sundays counts the number of weekend days off Crystal shared with his father before his dad died suddenly when Billy was only 15. The big laughs in this TV special are to be expected, but the deep emotions touched, and examined, may surprise you. It’s one of the most warmly evocative TV shows I’ve seen in years: a love letter from a long-grown son to his now-dead parents, all the more effective because it renders them humorously rather than canonizes them. You owe it to yourself to see this, if you’ve ever been a parent – or had one.

 
 
 
 
 
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