Thirty years after his death, the Texan who set out to ‘topple idols’ remains an outlaw truth-teller for many but his raging material can land with a clunk

He was the Kurt Cobain of comedy, railing against advertising, politicians, the war on drugs, even waffle waitresses. What do the new generation make of the chain-smoking motormouth?

Leo Benedictus: Early death does wonders for an artist's reputation, it is true, but Hicks was a major talent – raw, angry, sincere, unhappy, weeping and yelling at a complacent world

Ed Stoppard was impressive as the lawyer who dared to put the Führer in the dock in The Man Who Crossed Hitler, while the central pairing in The Hour brought the drama to a satisfying close, writes Phil Hogan

Devastating delivery, crab impersonations and there's even a hint of his old comedy partner Bill Hicks, writes Brian Logan