Just For Laughs Review: Margaret Cho

Margaret Cho does wonderful things with her face. One of them is an impression of someone who somehow made their way innocently into her show, as they quickly realise it’s not going to be a short history of Asian cinema, but more likely a detailed description of an enema. You can picture their disgust. And truly, at the Cho Show, nothing is off limits; there is no sexual act too deviant to be left free of lurid description, no brand of humour that is too scatological. There is no taboo that cannot be transgressed: Racists, bigots, inept politicians, mass murderers, her long-suffering parents, they all come in for skewering. This is equal opportunity R-rated shit. And it is super-funny, about 85% of the time.

So while Cho’s political edge is razor-sharp (she wins over the room right off the bat with an eerily accurate impression of Julia Gillard and displays a knowledge of our politics that, if it’s been boned up on in only a day, doesn’t show), some of the sex stuff, after a dozen or so iterations of the same joke, begins to take on the timbre of a single note. “We get it!” said my date in mock-exasperation, “YOU LIKE SEX!” And even the most libertine in the audience might have agreed. Yet when she shines her wit on Sarah Palin, or the machinations of Dancing With The Stars (on which she was a guest), or on her parents (Cho’s impressions of her uptight Korean mother and father have long been a fan highlight), or on telling stories of some of America’s douchiest stand-ups, her intellect sparkles and she strikes lacerating blows, every time.

But there are probably only so many times we can envisage her with two cocks in her mouth, as she prompts us to (though, this once occurred in a riff about how old Cho wants to be and still be “fuckable”, which is nursing home old. And this is the kind of thing that pushes right up against our discomfort: we all seem to find the notion of old people as sexual beings a level of revolting on par with stories about carrying a stubborn shit in your abdomen for three days – yet we never seem to consider ourselves as people who will some day be old too. And perhaps – shockingly – we may still want to have sex! Comedy is always succeeding the most when it’s confronting us with these discomfiting truths about ourselves.)

The biggest surprise of the night was Cho unleashing a truly impressive singing voice, which lent the show a not inappropriate cabaret feel. “People just don’t expect it to come out of my face,” she said of her pipes before launching into a great impression of a banshee, “What did you expect it to be? Like that?” It was the element of surprise which made these numbers really fly. So maybe a little less of what we do expect (dick jokes – and I know, this is a bit like going to the airport to complain about the planes) and a little more of what we don’t, next time, would make a Margaret Cho show truly exceptional and not just pretty great. Though her pretty great is still a cut above many other people’s really, really good.

Elmo Keep is a writer living in Sydney. She tweets here.

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