There are few, if any, working comedians able to claim the sheer number of accolades that riddle Tiffany Haddish’s wikipedia page. Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, The Hollywood Reporter’s 100 most powerful people in entertainment, an Emmy, a Grammy, as well as immense success in stand-up comedy, film, television, and literature. This was all apparent as she took the stage at the grandiose Elgin Theatre on September 26th. With her name up on the marquee as one of this year’s Just For Laughs Toronto headliners, the outright star-power she brings left nothing to be desired, with deafening hoots, hollers, and applause upon her entrance, as well as seemingly every 5 minutes for the duration of the show.
Now, I’m not going to say that I don’t get it, because I do, her body of work, persona, rags-to-riches story, and philanthropy make her hard not to love. But, this hour and a half left something to be desired in my eyes. In between the bright spots, of which there were quite a few, it felt as if she fell into the same “excessively vulgar and raunchy equals funny” trap I’ve seen ensnare so many comedians. This isn’t to say that comedians shouldn’t be vulgar and raunchy, it’s an important aspect of comedy and can be done very well, but this can be a tough tightrope walk. Once it passes the point of a well-crafted joke and bounds towards pure shock value, things can become a real tough watch, real fast. Haddish clearly has the comedy chops necessary to not rely on this. It was somewhat disappointing that instead of a well crafted hour of great dirty jokes, a solid portion of her set felt like improv, setting up to get the biggest gasp, rather than the biggest laugh. Although, her sense of physical comedy did a lot of work to make these bits enjoyable. She brings a real no-holds-barred approach to everything she does that, while not always laugh-out-loud funny, is constantly admirable and interesting.
On the other hand, the jokes that landed, really landed. The highlight of her set was a great bit about an unfortunate euthenasia / youth-in-Asia mix-up during a high school debate, in which she took a staunch pro-youth-in-Asia stance, much to the chagrin of her classmates. This was a fantastic joke that landed in a big way, making me wish this set did as much to highlight Haddish’s serious comedy chops as this bit did in 5 minutes. There were also several funny moments in which Haddish commented on the absurdity of the current political climate south of the border. Mentioning her desire to become a Canadian citizen through…various acts (that I don’t think I should mention on this site)–most of which involve our “handsome” Prime Minister. This, of course, was received with a great amount of enthusiasm from the crowd.
She closed her set with about 30 minutes of open Q&A from fans in the audience. This was a great touch that really made me understand her reputation of being very close with fans. As a casual enjoyer of Haddish’s work, I didn’t get a whole lot out of it; but I could tell that the big Haddish-heads were having a blast, which is really what this is all about.
She came across, to me, as someone with a whole lot of confidence and an extremely positive outlook on life, which is just what we need more of in these trying times, especially in the world of stand-up comedy. While I wouldn’t exactly clear my schedule, I would be happy to see another Tiffany Haddish set at some point down the road.