It shows on Sky One and Sky Atlantic, which are always niche channels over here. So those who know, now him. But I doubt he could fill a small theatre with a stand up routine over here…
A number of US comedians tend to find their audience in the UK. Bill Hicks (though he was on Letterman until he got kicked off), Doug Stanhope doe well here too. Most panel shows in the last 20 years had at least one American unknown over there.
I’m less sure of bands though, because, you know, we’ve not heard of them. I knew of Bush being big in the US too.
Jesus Christ Superstar went nowhere when it was released in the United Kingdom A friend of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mother actually said “It’s too bad your boy couldn’t make any money off of it.” The distributors went crazy trying to find a company to release it in America, finally Decca agreed, and the rest is history.
Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice had no idea how hot the record was in the USA until the record company flew them over to New York City and took them to a record store. The album was displayed by the register and most customers looked at it, and a lot bought it.
Of course, this was at the height of the Jesus movement of the early 1970’s, an America phenomenon ALW and Rice claim they had never heard of until they came to America.
Bruce Boa (actually Canadian, but we can’t tell the difference) and Ed Bishop were two all-purpose American actors here. If you wanted a genuinely convincing American, but you couldn’t afford a Hollywood name, you hired one of these two, and they turned up in EVERYTHING.
I exaggerated a wee bit for comic effect. Didn’t think yuh’d go all World Gazetteer on me.