by neil - November 24, 2008 10:08am
Your Real Worcester insider was at The Hanover Theatre for two events over the past few days. My position as a volunteer usher gives me a unique insider’s look at the goings on of theatre before the doors open and the curtain goes up.
On Thursday night NBC’s Last Comic Standing tour took to the stage featuring the top five finalists from the most recent season of the show. The runner up of the season Marcus was hanging around prior to our pre-show meeting chatting with many of the volunteers. After our meeting a bunch of the ushers headed into the theater as usual to scope out our assignments, make sure we have all the sections covered and make sure everything inside looks up to par before opening the doors. After a couple minutes Marcus took to the stage and put on a few minute routine totally off the cuff for about 20 of us who were wandering throughout the theater. After that he jumped off the stage and was up on the balcony taking pictures of The Hanover’s massive chandelier with his iphone.
Now on to the actual show….. The opener and MC of the night was fifth place contestant Louis Ramey. Ramey’s 20 minute set was certainly the raunchiest of the night, laced with jokes about female masturbation and trips to the back room of sex stores. But Ramey was as funny as he was raunchy and I think he may have stole the show because his interaction and one liners as he introduced the comics always brought some good laughs from the crowd.
The second comic was British comic Jim Tavare who played Tom the barkeep of The Leaky Cauldron in Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. Tavare came to the stage with a double bass and his act centered on some lame hokey jokes using the bass as a prop and a bit about playing the recorder. His one funny stretch was playing the double bass as if he was Jimmy Hendrix, but other than that I thought he was the weakest link of the night.
Next up was Jeff Dye who played the part of Christian stoner slacker college kid who has started to hit the big time. He had some funny observations about driving in LA in his 15 year old beat up car as well as a very funny bit about Coors beer. “Have you ever noticed that Coors never talks about the beer in their commercials? We have a vented can, we have a widemouth can, we have a label that turns blue when it is cold…. Well guess what you need to make better? THE BEER! I would like to be able to drink 30 and get DRUNK, not just feel FULL”…. He also had some funny observations about the way his mother interacts with her cats that hit a little close to home with me and my cats!
Next to last was the aforementioned Marcus who certainly had the most stage presence and personality of all the comics of the night. Although his bit about his first encounter with a bidet was nothing new he had some good impressions including Christopher Walken as President and a hilarious take on what it would be like if Adam Sandler was cast as Jesus in The Passion of The Christ.
Closing the show was Last Comic Standing winner Iliza Schlesinger. Unfortunately after Marcus’ high energy set Iliza was a letdown. Unfunny jokes about The Discovery Channel and Shark week gave way to mediocre material relating to dating and her lack of a sex life. The final set was not the way you would expect the reigning champ to end the night, which begs the question. Perhaps the right person did not win this season’s contest.
Overall it seemed that those in attendance had a great time, and the audience was roaring throughout the show, but the night went out like a lamb rather than a lion. Stayed tuned for our Movin’ Out review tomorrow!
[...] * Last Comic Standing review [...]