I love discovering new comedians at MICF. Admittedly, I wanted to see Headliners because of Joel Kim Booster – his film Fire Island is hilarious and has layers of insight while being very sexy, and his Netflix special Psychosexual is a sharp look at race and gender and sexuality through Joel’s life as an Asian kid adopted by white parents.
Paired with
Joel, though, is Zainab Johnson, whose work I was entirely unfamiliar with. But
after this sampler of Zainab’s work, I’ll be watching her Amazon special, Hijabs
Off, as soon as I can. But, right now, there’s a Comedy Festival on.
Joel is
charming and cheeky and gets the audience on side pretty quickly with a joke
about Easter. “We’re all Christians here, right?” And then there’s a bit of
crowd work about the end of the world, where we discover most of us think
Melbourne deserves to be nuked. Why would you want to live in a city that doesn’t
have the kind of lifestyle that invites the bomb?
Then Joel
entertains us with observations about kinks and love and Joel’s top-three
most-hated animals. It’s a bit of a chaotic set, but it’s consistently
hilarious. And it’s the perfect warm-up for Zainab’s half of this one-hour
show.
I thought Joel hating on koalas might put the local crowd off-side, but then I was really worried when Zainab said she had a gun. Not on her, of course. But she wants
people to know upfront that she has one, just so we’re prepared, depending on
where the evening takes us.
Zainab’s
stories are relatable (dating! real estate agents! the firing range?!) but the
twists and turns are very specific to her life – living alone as a black woman
in America has a lot of risks we Australians might not consider.
For one
thing, none of us are on Raya – the private, membership-based dating-app for
the famous, semi-famous and unknown guitarists. But bad dates can be bad dates,
no matter which app you meet on. Especially if he’s shorter than you and his
hands shake.
And for another,
some of us don’t even know what a “pot filler” is! Not even some of the white
women in the audience!
For all the
high-concept shows that come along at Comedy Festival time, there’s something
to be said for a perfectly-crafted thirty-minutes of stand-up that is fresh,
thoughtful, full of ridiculous belly-laughs and the kind of observations that
shock and entertain all at once. Zainab Johnson brings that!
Joel and
Zainab are a hell of a pair to see together – giving you a lot more laughter bang for your
bucks.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
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