I’ve been collecting material to neglect for this blog for over a year, so I’ll try to at least keep it active while I’m actually in London.
My general approach to blogging about comedy is not going to be one of critical assessment – reviewing anything is a simple exercise in subjectivity, but reviewing comedy is extremely so – that is one of the things about it that fascinates me the most; not only how comedians are bound to be both adored or reviled depending on who’s watching, but also how their material can soar one night, and the same routines die horribly the next.
I caught the first Jerry Sadowitz show in his current run at the Leicester Square Theatre. My only previous experience of JS was seeing him as a soft-spoken close-up magician on an old TV show (Stuff the White Rabbit). But I knew the man’s comedy reputation, so I was sure I wasn’t about to see anything ready for prime-time viewing.
The crowd seemed a bit harder than what’s normal for a weekday West End comedy crowd. My experience is that they tend to be genteel; a lot of stand-ups mock this type of London audience for their civility, and this tends to be taken with polite good humour, which only goes to prove the point.
OK, the Sadowitz crowd isn’t exactly frightening, but there is something raw, rougher around the edges than I’ve come to expect. The parade of people who need to shuffle past to get the centre of the row I’m sitting in are an irksome procession. One group choreographs their entry one-by-one, at five minute intervals for maximum irritation. As the mood quietly simmers between annoyance and anger, it turns out that this is a perfect warm-up for a frenetic 90-minute whirlwind of rage and card tricks.
As I said, I am very rarely going to use this space to ‘rate’ acts, since I think the experience is too personal, and can vary wildly for a multitude of reasons; and I am not going to repeat any of their material. But I do want to provide an idea of what happened, or what to expect.
In this case, I’ll just say that if you are thinking of seeing the man, you should be prepared for a furious set that includes as topics; pedophilia, rape, masturbation, racism – and has Madeleine McCann as a running gag. And magic tricks. Nothing is tabu, and nothing is ‘too soon’. This is an exploration of the ‘unsayable’, far stronger stuff than what is usually on offer. If you can’t take it, don’t go.
Sadowitz referred to this show being savaged in Chortle, in a review entitled ‘A tirade of racist, sexist, borderline-psychopathic bile’. ‘Borderline?!’ he asked.
On the night, I didn’t see anyone walk out – the few I saw stand up, came back with beer. An amazing evening.
