Covering a comedy show is always fun, until you have to write about it.
One of the hardest things is trying not to reiterate any of the jokes, and risk ruining them in any way.
On Wednesday night, T.J. Miller, one of the stars of HBO’s smash-hit sitcom Silicon Valley, took over the Vogue Theatre with the help of his uber talented wife, Kate Miller, and the very funny Nick Vatterott.
The night started with a thirty-minute opening set from Mr. Vatterott. He is quite an interesting performer, because his stage persona jumps between a stumbling, sort of jittery mind where he is stepping over his own words, and then he switches to a fluid, clear minded master of monologues. This ability to change back and forth as his set requires, allows him flexibility in how the audience perceives him. When he is taking the crowd through a long story, where he is dashing back and forth between thoughts, it feels quite off the cuff, but when his style switches to a more articulate and polished approach, it really highlights his writing ability.
By the end of his set, the crowd had their laughing muscles all warmed up, and were ready for the main course.
Ms. Kate Miller came to the stage, and brought a mixture of comedy and singing. Her set was shorter, and rolled into the headlining slot.
Her voice is very strong, and she has a great range. The songs she sang were accompanied by small interactions with the crowd, and mini-monologues to keep things fun and light. She actually felt like the true opener for the headliner.
Near the end of her time on stage she brought up those moments when songs get stuck in your head. She the sang a cover of The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me, but she took the lyrics and replaced each line with the first very line of the song – “You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, when I met you” – just singing it over and over to the changing instrumentals. This went on for so long, it went from funny, to exhausting, then back to funny again. I found myself nearly in tears by the time she left the stage.
She introduced her husband, and he walked right out on stage.
To welcome him she squirted and entire bottle of water right in his face, things were off to a great start.
Mr. Miller’s brand of comedy is all over the board. He brings physical comedy, and tightly written observational pieces, and relatable personal stories, and wacky/stoner styled bits, and articulate George Carlin’esque mouth-jumbling rants, all in that one hour he stands before the crowd. He is truly talented.
Throughout the show he kept the laughs rolling. There were no pauses, or switching gears. He managed to take any time between bits and fill them with something hilarious. Be it spraying himself in the face with the contents of a water bottle, to dashing back and forth while testing the dexterity of the spotlight operator, he went nonstop through the whole set.
T.J.’s writing is wonderful, you would be hard pressed to find somebody that couldn’t appreciate it.
The only real down fall to the night was that it ended, I could have watched him perform for hours.
I enjoyed the presentation, and look forward to seeing more from him.
