With every passing special sculpted by David Cross, it may seem like it’s impossible for him to top it with his next hour. However, if he’s got anything to say about it as the leading expert of all things David Cross, he can assure you that with this new slate of material, his last effort has officially been topped.
As he makes his way back to Boston for a doubleheader offering at The Wilbur on Saturday (May 6), as part of his The Worst Daddy in the World tour, Cross is having a lot of fun with his new run of jokes and stories. With one show sold out, he’s taking the good signs as he sees them, and having an all-star comedy talent in fellow New York-based comic Sean Patton just adds to the excitement. But make no mistake, while he’s taken some liberties with his allotted time on stage in the past, he’s keeping things tight this time around, and it still hasn’t taken any steam out of his game.
“This one is a really fun set to do. Quite often, I’ll expand the set and do, like, an hour and a half because I’m a self-indulgent narcissist, but I have this one pretty tight, and it’s been great,” Cross tells Vanyaland. “It’s been very well received, and Sean Patton sets the table really nicely with what he does to open the show, so it’s just been a great set to do and really fun so far.”
Having been at this for decades, Cross knows what he’s doing, and although his viewpoints and beliefs have caused a good amount of people to cringe, shudder, or just plain walk out in the middle of his shows, he’s not looking to change the recipe of what makes his comedy remain so potent after all these years of letting us in on moments in his personal life as well as his elite dissection and decimation of social topics and public figures with progressively harsher criticism and insight.
But truth be told, it’s not a preset goal of his to approach it that way. It just sort of shakes out that way more often then not.
“This isn’t a hard and fast number, but a recipe that I play around with whenever I’m building a set is a third topical, a third anecdotal, and a third of dumb dad jokes. It’s pretty much always worked out that way, but who knows how the set will be by the time I’m in Boston,” says Cross. “Some people have told me that I’m a political comedian, but I’m really not. I’m a comedian who talks about some political stuff, but it’s not even half of my set ever. It just feels like that, I guess, because of my dark and abrasive approach, but there’s plenty of inoffensive stuff in there. I’ve been doing this for a very long time, so I know what I’m doing with it, but I want to make sure that if people walk out, then by the time they walk out, they’ve gotten at least a half hour of material that they could have liked.”
Usually, Cross’ attention to creative detail gets the best of him when he’s coming up with a name for a tour, or even an album or special. If it hasn’t been something too precious, poncy and fraught with meaning, his chosen titles have been something simple, often shaped from a bad pun. But with the latest tour name, he’s found the sweet spot right in the middle, with just the right touch of personal and philosophical.
“My stories and jokes about being a dad are sprinkled through the set, and act as a bridge to other ideas that have nothing to do with being a parent, and not that there’s a double meaning to the name, but there are layers to it,” says Cross. “My daughter would say I’m the worst daddy in the world while other people who know me will tell me I’m the greatest dad, and there are plenty of people who will listen to this set in which I talk about all kinds of things, and upon walking out, will conclude that I am the worst daddy in the world. Not because I’m irresponsible with raising my child, but because of the beliefs I have.”
Along with a cavalcade of successes both on screen and on stage, many years separate Cross from his early days on the comedy grind spent in Boston. But having lived in spaces spanning from the Back Bay and Beacon Hill to Cambridgeport and Somerville, something that will never leave the one-time Emerson attendee is the nostalgia and ritual of getting back to town to find a local bar and watch a baseball game over a pint and a plate of steamers. And this time around, he’s hoping to get a friend hooked on it, as well.
“I’ve been talking up steamers to Sean,” says Cross. “He’s from New Orleans, so he isn’t familiar with them, and they’re one of the things I miss most about Boston. I lived there for nine years, and it was really important to me and my development as both a comedian and person, but the one thing I always seem to think about and miss the most is just going to a bar and watching the Sox game with a big plate of steamers.”
DAVID CROSS :: Saturday, May 6 at The Wilbur Theatre, 246 Tremont St. in Boston, MA :: 6 and 8:45 p.m., $42.50 to $142.50 :: Advance Tickets