When Sarah Silverman took to the stage at Hammersmith Apollo one night in 2008, she couldn’t have been more hip, or more hyped – America’s most cutting-edge comic come among us. Forty-five measly minutes later, her reputation – at least among short-changed London comedygoers – was in tatters. I was reminded of this at Soho theatre this week, when Jerrod Carmichael, creator of the 2022 special Rothaniel – showered with justified accolades and an Emmy award – made a rare UK appearance, and went down like a dead shark.
At least Carmichael’s gig didn’t end, like Silverman’s, with a crowd in open revolt. The mood was more bemusement, that one of the world’s most revered comics should self-sabotage to this degree. How he did so, at least, was interesting – and clearly had its roots in Rothaniel, an extraordinary set (directed for HBO by the great Bo Burnham) to file alongside Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette in the pantheon of shows that recast standup into new shapes – and darker colours.
Rothaniel is Carmichael’s coming-out show, but that’s the least distinctive thing about it. It’s also about secrets and lies, and how Carmichael – finally out of the closet – can no longer stomach them. The commitment to truth-telling is reflected in the form: the jokes and rehearsed patter fall away; there are downcast looks and silences, increasingly filled by questions and supportive remarks from the audience. Carmichael is thinking aloud (and not so aloud), in dialogue with that audience, about the implications of his new honesty, and about rebuilding bridges to his estranged mum.
Framed in tight closeup, in a New York jazz bar, this is gripping stuff, even if you can’t help but wonder whether the audience interjections are spontaneous or whether Carmichael’s speechlessness – as if the end of comedy has been reached – is real. (Sometimes “truthful” performances are the most suspicious performances of all.) What clearly is real is the performer’s interest in this new species of standup – on the hoof, emotionally frank, tightly focused on Carmichael himself, and seemingly absolved of any obligation to amuse us.
That’s the vibe at Soho, where the North Carolina man opens by announcing he has cast aside his prepared show, because he just can’t take his eyes off the online reaction – unspooling right now! – to his new TV series. The trailer came out this week for the Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show on HBO, “a darkly funny documentary” – featuring his family and boyfriend – “about Jerrod’s tumultuous quest for love, sex, and truth”. You can see why the project must be meaningful to Carmichael; his concern tonight seems to be his rejection by other black gay men – exploding all over Twitter, and prompted by Carmichael’s having a white boyfriend. But is it meaningful enough to derail his debut London gig, which never gets going because the host can’t stop checking his phone? I’m all for emotional honesty, but not at the expense of professionalism.
The trick with standup, of course, has always been to feign spontaneity, to appear to be coming up with this stuff out of the blue. Carmichael seems to want to turn up the dial on that, to present himself as someone who loathes or is too good for artifice (“material all feels false, I’m sorry”), offering instead a pensive commentary on his emotional state and in-the-moment thoughts. Respect for making the effort – and he pulls it off in Rothaniel, at least to the degree that you leave very impressed by how he can make prepared punchlines seem like sudden, hard-won shards of comic insight.
He does not pull it off here. Yes, there are flashes of comic power: the riff on Kanye as the only black man white people freely criticise; his erotic reverie on the pop star D’Angelo. But mainly it’s just Carmichael scrolling on his phone, more interested in his reputation than his audience – then selling that self-absorption back to us as if it were bravery. (“I’m just up here feeling in front of you guys …”) He doesn’t stand for much of the gig, despite the fact that sitting on the stage renders him barely visible to most of the audience.
Acknowledging the thinness of the experience, the 36-year-old invites us to come back later in the week – but he doesn’t offer refunds. (The blurb tells us Carmichael is working on material for his new show. Tickets are £30.) The audience’s phones were impounded before the gig – ironically, given how little here is worth recording. That policy does provide one woman in the front row with the funniest line of the night, mind you. “They made us put our phones in little bags,” she tells Carmichael. “They should have made you do the same with yours.”
Well, quite. By the end, our host is coming across less as a fearless standup experimenter, more as someone whose self-indulgence sensors are out of whack. With its rejection of secrets and lies, Rothaniel remains a remarkable comedy set. But might its success be leading Carmichael up a blind alley? Certainly, this night in London suggests that, compared with the boring truth, entertaining lies have a lot to recommend them.
• Rothaniel is on NowTV. Jerrod Carmichael is at Soho theatre, London, on 8 March.
