Editor’s Note: Sometimes, you may find yourself scrolling through whatever streaming service you subscribe to, and you come across a comedy special from an artist you may or may not be familiar with. Inevitably, the first question you ask yourself as you contemplate your next move will most likely be ‘Is this something worth an hour that I can’t get back?’ — and we are here to help you shuffle through the latest and greatest comedy releases to make sure that hour and change is well spent. Welcome to The ReVue Stage. Here in the latest little corner carved out in Vanyaland’s comedy coverage, where not only will you find reviews and recaps of what we feel are the best stand-up specials to recently hit the scene, but also thoughts on any brand spankin’ new comedy albums, and hell, when we feel like leaving the house for a minute, we’ll even do the damn thing at live stand-up shows around the area. It’s all killer no filler around these parts, comrade. So kick back and let us help you figure out your next chuckle.
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Generally speaking, the aim of this section is to shine the light on one specific release. However, in a unicorn of happenstance a few weeks back, three Boston comedy exports who have gone on to become some of stand-up’s most consistent joke slingers — Needham native Jared Freid, Chris “The Pride of Stow” Fleming, and Whitman’s own Joe List — all released specials within a four-day span of each other. While it may come as no surprise that three comedians with considerably different approaches to how they delivery their top-tier funnies have unleashed material that is all over the comedy spectrum, it’s those very differences that make each special such grand displays of art and hilarity. Here’s what we feel makes them all worth a look-see in their own respective timeframes:
Jared Freid — 37 & Single (Netflix)
For as long as he’s been doing the damn thing, relationships really have been Freid’s “thing” when he’s on stage, and with his latest hour, which just so happens to be his first hour-long special, he made us feel somewhere deep inside that it’s a lot more of our “thing” too than we thought or would care to let on. Where topics like dating, sex and relationships can seem almost cliché and wildly overdone as far as subject matter goes in comedy, Freid has taken the time to deep dive into seemingly every crevasse of those subjects, and has never failed to somehow pull more unique perspective out of the abyss with every angle he explores. The result in this case is a non-stop, all-too-relatable bundle of musings that will have you realizing some shit as he continues to dissect the dynamics of romance and dating. It’s a bonafide laughs-per-minute clinic, and that’s not exactly easy to achieve.
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Chris Fleming — Hell (Peacock)
“What in the ever-living hell was that,” you ask? It’s Chris Fleming’s new special, and it’s exactly what you’ve always needed. Wherever Fleming pulls his creativity and comedic inspiration from, it evidently has no endpoint, and we like it that way. With his most anticipated release to date, Fleming quite literally offers up a little bit of everything when it comes to the avenues of comedy and theater. Jokes, stories, music, and sketch comedy all fill up this most recent soiree with the Stow native, but within each of those categories is a Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory-level tapestry of joyously hallucinogenic mayhem and left turns. It’s really no stretch to say this batch of material from Fleming truly pushes creative boundaries a bit farther than we’ve seen in any recent time, at the very least, and knowing deep down that there’s a good chance it won’t be the farthest we see Fleming go in terms of creative lengths is comforting, exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. With that being said, if this truly is Fleming’s “hell,” the burn is sweet and we highly encourage everyone to get a little toasty and join in on the adventure.
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Joe List — Enough For Everybody (YouTube)
For as many times as List’s comedy has been labeled as “grotesque” or “raunchy,” it’s really nothing we haven’t thought of ourselves — he’s just one of the the very few who are brave enough to put those thoughts out in the open with a much more poetic, and thankfully a more out-of-pocket flair. With his third special in four years (kinda like Tom Brady and his first three Super Bowls), List doesn’t really show as much of a palpable creative growth or straying away from what we love about him so much, as he does just a walloping consistency to craft a crushing joke from both short and extended setups without any sort of rushing or longwinded unraveling that loses the crowd. If there’s such thing as an “anger translator,” then List is definitely the “what the fuck? translator we all didn’t actually know we needed. The connection and energy reciprocated between List and his audience is an admirable trait to have as a performer, and List is showing once again that once you get him started, he’s not backing down, and that’s all we can hope for.