Self-Deprecating Handler Keeps the Crowd Howling

Review by John Black - Cape Cod Times

 

    A rowdy, mostly female audience packed the Comedy Connection at Faneuil Hall Friday night to welcome comedienne Chelsea Handler as she made her Boston debut. If their raucous response is any indication, the New Jersey native (now LA transplant) has found her second home.

    Armed with a self deprecating comic approach that's honest to the point of hilarity, Handler captured the crowd with her wit from her opening salvo - a comic broadside at the idea of a reality show trying to find a mate for rapper Flavor Flav ("Is this what we've some to, ladies? I'd rather hook up with a relative") - to her final observations on romance, relationships and reality as she sees it.

 

    Although fans of her popular television show (The Chelsea Handler Show" on E!) or her best selling book ("My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands") were familiar with many of the stories she shared during her hour-long performance, it didn't stop them from howling with laughter as Handler recapped her romantic adventures,' the majority of which she honestly (and happily) admits were one-night stands fueled by alcohol. "Yeah I slept with a midget, but I didn't mean to. It's just the more I drank the taller he got," she said. "When I first saw him he was wearing a sombrero that was filled with salsa and chips. It was so freakin' cute. You telling me you'd let that get away? I don't think so."

    Granted, it may not read as funny here in a review as it was to hear in a comedy club Friday night, but the joy of watching Handler perform was the way she effortlessly kept tabs on her audience to judge what was making them laugh and what was falling flat, a talent far too many stand up comics seem to lack these days. Thankfully, her judgment of her audience didn't extend to political correctness; she never changed her delivery (or opinion) from fear that it would offend. As well as she knows her audience, Handler also knows her material and knows it's funny.

    "Why do guys think it's OK to ask a woman out for coffee as a date? You mean we don't even get a meal out of it? What do you do after a frappacinno? Go for a piggyback ride?" "I have a friend who has one baby and she bought a mini-van? Just how big is that baby that it needs a van to haul it around?"  "I don't like to see homeless people with dogs. I saw one today and he asked me for some money to buy food. Why should I give him money when he has a perfectly delicious dog standing right next to him?"

    If you think that last joke went over the line of good taste then Chelsea handler may not be your comic cup of tea, particularly given the fact that the vast majority of her material - funny as it is - can't be reprinted in a family newspaper. But since none of it is said in a mean-spirited way, but delivered with a knowing wink at the absurdity of it all, one can quickly forgive Handler for the gleeful way she crosses the line of good taste for the sake of a punch line, more often than not at her own expense. It's hard to get upset, anyway, when you're laughing so hard.