All hail the Queen of Comedy! Margaret Cho at the Glee Club - Review
Described as her sickest show to date, Korean-American comedian Margaret Cho brought her brand new show Fresh Off The Bloat to Birmingham's Glee Club last night – and it sure lived up to its name.
First up to warm the sold-out crowd was Philadelphian comic Rocco Stowe – who had the audience cackling from start to finish with his anecdotes of enjoying growing old, being a single father and his annoyance with modern music.
"That's one thing about the British, you sure do know how to butcher a word. You call everything brilliant, even if I say 'yes I have a pen' it's 'ah, brilliant'" Rocco joked, to howls from the crowd.
Nice and warmed up, Rocco introduces Margaret Cho as the "princess of comedy", and she sure shows that her crown is still firmly in place with a raucous show from start to finish.
"Hi Birmingham! Are we ready for a good show tonight? I've never been to Birmingham before, it's just nice to be away from America right now" Margaret shouted, and her belly-laugh inducing show began.
It is a bold statement to call your brand new tour your sickest one to date - but kicking off the show addressing Harvey Weinstein and other sexual harassment claims arising in show business right now will certainly set a bar.
From the darkness of Hollywood to Margaret's own experiences with sexual abuse, the AIDs crisis, white-washing, substance addiction and abusive relationships - Margaret grappled with a variety of challenging subjects all with the aim of making the audience laugh.
This in no way came across as offensive and insensitive however, Margaret used her intelligence and experience with the subjects to create an atmosphere that was welcoming in a discussion of these topics, rather than to condemn and embarrass.
She juxtaposed this dark and heavy material with comical impressions of her Korean mother, and a variety of crude and lewd sound effects to accompany her various sexual tales to lighten the tone.
Margaret is known for her activism and political content within her comedy - and this show was no different, with a hysterical section dedicated solely to her dislike of Donald Trump.
"It is scary and ridiculous that Donald Trump is our president," Margaret stated. "He can't even blend his under-eye concealer into the rest of his orange make up, he is ludicrous." And that is the only quote I can reasonably retell.
Ending to whoops and cheers from the whole Glee Club audience - Margaret was not the princess of comedy, she was the queen.
