So I scored a free ticket for tonight’s Kevin Hart. Yes I know it’s greedy of me as I saw him last year but my friend’s wife turned up for the weekend and ….yep, he chose sex over laughing about sex. Wise man.
Let’s be clear I’ve sort of stopped going to see American comedians who come here and charge ridiculous prices for mediocre shows. I saw Seinfeld which was certainly not worth the £100 ticket price. And I caught the recent Kat Williams DVD …. A retirement can be a terrible thing for a comedian.
Years earlier I saw Chris Rock at his 1st show here. He didn’t adapt his material to the UK market. What this show did however was open the floodgates to black comedians we wouldn’t normally have seen suddenly coming to the UK. There was a recession coming and the pound was strong.
So when Kevin Hart came last year I was ambivalent. But I’m one of those support the black act Ticketmaster buyers. Besides they made for cute gifts. We went to Indigo2 and….there was a ridiculously long queue. What was going on? Apparently there were going to be 2 shows? I don’t know how when as it was a black event it typically started 40 minutes late. The warmup acts were ok but they relied on lazy material. You can do the race thing if you want or the homophobia line or the bitches are this and bitches are that. I’ll smile but it’s all a bit 90s. I rushed my Nandos for this?
I was about to make a bolt for it. I mean there is no end to the number of chicken livers I can eat. If I rushed I could still get there, right? Then Kevin came on and…..he was funny. He relied on the key rule of writing. He wrote about what he knew. He told us about his family, his kids, his ex wife, his druggy dad…..you couldn’t help but laugh at his pain.
I then endured a weird year of seeing him everywhere. He was the go to comedian. He was in every black rom com I reviewed. He was even in Modern Family. I just couldn’t escape him. I followed him on twitter for a while but we fell out over a question of geography. (You know a lot of Americans don’t know the rest of the world right? Let alone Africa? Hmmmm one of those)
So when the tickets came out I thought, I’ve seen this dude too much. I’m not going to go and for once I passed. But it would seem that the universe has other plans for me. I’m going solo but so many people are going that I think it’s playing social catch up. Please let it not be ‘spot the ex’ night.
I’m still not sure about Chris Tucker tickets though. I mean that voice? for an hour? I dunno…..
Enjoy for those that go and for those that don’t, enjoy the after party.
Alright alright alright!
© Chelsea Black
