From the mailroom to the boardroom, they used to say about improbable ascents up a company’s ranks. How’s about, from the HR department to the standup stage? That’s the trajectory traced at Netflix by staffer turned comedian Leslie Liao, who appeared on the streamer’s Verified Standup showcase last year while still working in its personnel office. She has since quit, although some deeply felt material here recalls the inanities of office life, and her tendency to cry when sacking people – not a great qualification for an HR role.
So is she better suited to the comedy stage? On this evidence, very much so – even if the Californian arrives in London with a selection of short club sets not yet woven into a coherent hour. There’s a running joke about what the theme of the show is – Liao ventures several unlikely possibilities – serving mainly to highlight that there’s no theme at all, just a collection of routines piled atop one another until the light flashes 60 minutes and Liao leaves the stage.
That absence – of structure, narrative, big idea – puts pressure on the jokes, to which Liao’s occasionally rise. Much of the material addresses life as an (until recently) single 37-year-old, “micro-dosing parenthood” as an auntie, on the dating apps, feeling solidarity for all the other women “fixing each other’s future husbands” in short-lived relationships. Some routines – the one about nineties R&B; the one about her (hypothetical) mafia parenting style – feel underdeveloped, dissipating when they might dig deeper. But there are occasions when Liao sets herself at arrestingly sharp angles to modern life, like the routine about how sleeping arrangements shaft single people, or the one that questions women’s options when seeking protection from threatening men.
This is all accomplished with relaxed informality on Liao’s part, an infectious laugh and a cheerful receptiveness to the novelty of this maiden London performance. This recovering HR professional may be hoping she’s put the world of performance appraisals behind her, so I’ll keep mine brief: her set is neither adventurous nor well crafted, but Liao’s open and engaging manner makes it a perfectly companionable hour.
At Soho theatre, London, until 23 March. Then at Glasgow international comedy festival on 24 March
