The weekend began at 4am on Thursday. That’s reportedly when the guy who roasted the pig in a makeshift pit on the sidewalk outside the Bell House showed up. By the time the crowd filtered into their seats at 8pm, plates full of smoky swine, it all made sense.
Among the evening’s highlights:
- Pete Holmes, amiable as usual, fired up a crowd that had given over to a postpork digestion coma. Turns out he doesn’t trust grown-ups who eat candy; he feels some disconnect between adult life and arguably childish treats. His repeated illustrations of this peeve culminated in his playing a woman wailing the name of her aborted child while sucking on a Ring Pop.
He vowed to cut that part of the bit next time.
- Kristen Schaal entered, doing a dance she later described as one in which she “seduced and then assassinated Adolf Hitler.” Later, she grabbed a guy from the audience [her ever-patient boyfriend, Rich, who also plays a great rube when required] and forced him to play MASH—that old kids’ game meant to determine where you’ll live and whom you’ll marry in the future. Once Schaal had determined he’d marry her, live in an outhouse, have 57 kids and drive a “Boogermobile,” the future she predicted played out in a short film.
- The night was threaded with promos for fake TV shows created by comics; the best among them was the simplest and came from Leo Allen. His preview was for a reality show that challenged a group of convicts to build a silo; if they didn’t build it in a week, they’d go back to jail. The network had a hidden agenda, though: It was going to blow up the silo and send them back to jail regardless.
- Out front stood the cardboard V.I.P. room. Someone really took some time building the thing, which came across like a glittery teepee made from old refrigerator boxes. Inside, an audition tape of actors wanting to become bouncers for the room, was playing on a loop. Caviar was also available.
Daniel Kitson also took the stage Thursday as a prequel to his pair of shows Friday and Saturday and killed from start to finish. Something he identified as his “preternatural comedic ability” transformed even awkward moments into joyful ones: An initial uncomfortable rant about unwanted picture-taking got stretched into the evening’s running joke. (After some extrapolation, Kitson equated photography with child molestation; he’d sneer at anyone taking a picture and spit, “Pedophile!”) Late in the set, he fell entirely off of the stage while giving a goofy high-five.
On Saturday, in the intimate, packed Union Hall space, his We Are Gathered Here did not disappoint. Ostensibly about the death of a beloved aunt, the show swayed anywhere from baking to coffee addiction to small miracles witnessed in cars’ turn signals. Kitson’s occasional flash of cockiness made you wish he weren’t as good as he was, but his endearing presence and incredibly creative wordplay kept the audience enrapt and cackling throughout. The formula worked even as he addressed sensitive subject matter: “Every time I touch the tip of my dick, someone somewhere in the world dies. Dead, dead, dead—don’t look away, you cowards!”
Sunday’s Tearing the Veil of Maya was back at Bell House, where Mirman and his coproducers had rented a Hummer limousine for the evening to take patrons to and from the Atlantic Avenue subway station.
The expectant sold-out crowd was treated to:
- Leo Allen’s enlightening look into the list of most-viewed Wikipedia pages, which range from Michael Jackson to vagina to U.S. Presidents without
- Michael Showalter lazily riffing on movies and commercials—not to say he didn’t have his moments. Describing an irksome national spot, Showalter realized he was disdaining TV hipsters in front of real hipsters. “I’m not saying that’s what you are,” Showalter assured the crowd, “I’m saying that’s what this commercial is saying I’m seeing.”
- Todd Barry’s great set, ending with a slow dissection of an Esquire column entitled “How to Feel Good to a Woman.” Apparently women want men to smell like Maine and push—not pull—their hair. Go figure.
- In a surprise appearance, Jim Gaffigan joking about—what else—food. “You’ll be seeing those jokes in Reader’s Digest next month,” he said, chastening himself.
- Reggie Watts, as per usual, ripping the roof off. He came at the crowd in what Mirman aptly identified as one of his “20-minute psychedelic riffs” with so many ideas and so much energy that one woman gave voice to the general sentiment: “We love you, Reggie!”
The show and the festival over at once, the crowd was invited to stay for a drink or take the waiting Hummer limousine, which Mirman and his coproducers had rented for the evening, to the Atlantic/Pacific subway station—another bizarrely classy touch to cap off a weekend full of them.
Since we couldn’t be in Edinburgh this year, comedian and saucy songstress Jessica Delfino has sent dispatches through both the literal Scottish fog and the Festival Fringe alcoholic one.
