by Megan Richardson
Arts Editor

Comedian PJ Walsh, who has recently been touring with the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, visited Bates last Friday night to give a varied and at times awkward performance in the Silo. After getting off to a slow start, Walsh partially redeemed himself with a few hilarious jokes, but for the most part, Walsh’s performance left much to be desired.

The night started off with some jokes about war and the military. While some of these were funny, particularly his description of members of the Navy who don’t know how to swim, many of them needlessly made fun of a wide range of people, including Italians, Frenchmen, and short people, to name a few. Laughter was only half-hearted during this part of his show, and several audience members got up and left before the first twenty minutes were over.

Fortunately, Walsh improved as the night moved on. His bit about the differences between men and women was great. His comments about the vast quantities of beauty products to be found in the female shower were accurate, and his admission that men use all of their girlfriends’ products when no one is around to catch them was funny because it was true. He also talked about how unaware he was about how great a feat childbirth is, saying “my sister just had a baby. It weighed twelve pounds. I was like ‘what’s the big deal? I can bench that, suck it up.’” He then went on to tell us that he realized just how big a twelve-pound baby was on Thanksgiving, when he saw a twelve pound turkey, and he ended by saying “Thank you women for having babies. Thank you so much!”

Walsh’s physical comedy was great. His ability to flop down onto the stage at random times, or run around, and kick his legs up in the air added emphasis to his jokes, besides making him funny to look at. He also occasionally really caught on to something that everyone can identify with, and those moments were the best. For example, he told quite a few jokes about the awkward years of puberty, referring to embarrassing spin-the-bottle and seven-minutes-in-heaven moments. When he asked the audience, “have you ever totally misjudged a kiss?” the response was a roar of laughter - apparently, everyone had. He then went on to do an impression of swallowing a girl’s head in a much too open-mouthed kiss. It was hilarious.

Despite these funny moments, Walsh continuously turned the crowd off with his offensive comedic style. His habit of picking on audience members and saying mean things to them was annoying, not funny. He seemed to be really reaching for material, as if he was aware that he wasn’t doing very well and wanted to put the humiliation off onto audience members. The audience members took it in stride, but Walsh’s interactions with the audience were a weakness in the show.

The ending of the show was pretty good. Yes, it involved a little audience member humiliation, but in a good way. Walsh selected five men and five women from the audience and then instructed them to compete in “a good old-fashioned dance- off.” The best part of the dance-off was when one of the male dancers walked off stage and out the door when Walsh wasn’t looking. Walsh informed the audience that at every school he’d performed at, the guys always won the competition. After a several-minute long planning session, the guys came out with a rather uninspired -though hysterical - dance routine. The girls got onstage and took turns showing the guys up, eventually winning the competition. As a final stunt, Walsh showed us “how it’s done” by getting down on the dance floor all by himself, providing a fun ending to an otherwise imperfect performance.




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