The Oxford Glee Club is electro-draped in red. Stepping onto its portico is like finding yourself on red Mars with margaritas. Chase, Alexis, and I sat in the back, watching a staggering and clumsy crowd for that early hour enter into the club. There were the dating couples, the married folks, three drunken hen parties, a wild stag party, and the thirty- or forty- somethings wearing shorts even at night because its their day off work.
We had all gathered this evening into this funky club with its yellow, plastic furniture and its very enthusiastic lights set for entertainment. It was hard for me to believe that any show, especially one with the slightly tacky/hip exterior, could unite this miasma of people. My main concern for this comedy event, was, could it live up its exuberant outside with serious and charming humor? Or would it just be plastic and unfeeling?
The lights above us went out, a drumroll, sparkling light bedazzled all around us, and the screen fell away to reveal the massive letters of ‘GLEE.’ I was biting my nails at this epileptic beginning.
The host was an Australian named Matt Hardy. He had a routine about how the British think Australians are novelty people. I found him adorable, with his young Homer Simpson mop of hair and slightly biting humor. Still, I was hoping for more than cheap jokes. Serious humor would soon show itself.
William Hastings, the first act, was a loveable and sarcastic twenty-five-years-old Canadian dude. In a blitzkrieg combination of bathroom humor, family, Canadian-in-England, young guy-ness lack of ambition, and telemarketing he asserted himself as an endearing guy who has experienced some of the crazy, strangeness of ordinary life. He reminded me of myself, in that he is obstinately purposeful about things that other people would think odd. He ended with saying he does stand-up to find the guy who insulted his mom while he was soliciting over the phone in his job as a telemarketer. Then, he left the stage, saying the person was in the Oxford Glee Club tonight. An insane maneuver to create humor and make every person in the audience a little bit scared of and respectful of him.
Next was the heavily British-accented Steve Shanyaski. He came right out with a female’s voice, his wife’s. His act is of the goof-ball variety. He erotically rubs the giant ‘E’ of ‘GLEE,’ slurs his words, and mutters curses in imitation of his wife drunk. The crowd really liked him, but mostly because of his female voice impression and stunts rather than the content of his jokes.
Lastly is Carey Marx, a powerful comedian, but short on emotion. His jokes were mainly about science: natural selection, global warming, and researchers who measure the length of polar bear penises. All of his lines wonderfully and incredibly smart, each one playing on the other. He went as far as he could go with the audience; two of the hen parties stopped laughing when he tapped on Creationism, bestiality, and homophobia. What he said did not bother me, and I am glad he pushed the boundary. Yet, I wished for some of the cutes and cuddles of the last comedians to dilute his successive punch lines. The Oxford Glee Club is not just a gaudy place of amusement; its stand-up shows mean business.
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