1000 Tiny Birds

John Mulaney - From Scratch

Hammersmith Apollo, 2023-01-25

“I’m not going to adapt all of my references for you like, ‘so I was in a Tesco…’”. As a comedian, it’s somewhat disheartening to watch John Mulaney be as good as he is. Even forced into something of a stylistic (or, more accurately, material) shift, he pulls off marrying his shiny persona with tales of addiction, intervention, and rehab (ah, the three act structure). I’ve long been fascinated by the difference between American and British stand up, with my preferences in the former being either those few who skew towards the latter style (Bo Burnham) or those like Mulaney who are so good at it, you just admire it. Mulaney’s special guests Seaton Smith and Dan Levy (not that one) sadly don’t particularly fall into either category, but are at least both not bad and only on briefly. Otherwise, it’s 90 minutes of uncut Mulaney. Stories of wishing his grandmother would die during the school year and the frenzied buying and immediate selling of a Rolex in order to get cash to pay for drugs make it understandable why we had our phones locked in pouches all evening, but beyond that, it’s a masterclass in making the unrelatable feeling relevant.