Gig review by Steve Bennett at Just For Laughs, Montreal

Only in comedy would it be flattering to compare a 31-year-old woman with Louis CK. 

But Emily Heller has shades of the older comic’s world-weary cynicism,  accepting that life is pretty much a series of anti-climaxes and trying her best to laugh them off.

She dismisses being a relationship as nothing more than ‘fine’ –  a place she got to only after meeting ‘a million monsters’ in the murkier realms of online dating. Though she is also resigned to the fact that she’s not the greatest human being herself, a little self-absorbed and certainly no ambitious go-getter.

Knowing herself leads to an entertaining line in self-deprecation, while also being dismissive of the efforts of others. The quality of the jokes varies from zingers, through wryly amusing and occasionally close to the generic – she’s clearly not as accomplished as CK, but the outsider shtick serves her well.

Her personality is also strongly defined by being an artsy liberal, which inevitably leads her to the Trump presidency, which she sees as an out-of-control subway train, a metaphor she takes to amusing extremes. But for a properly unique analogy, you can’t equal her likening the Presidential race to Air Bud, the Nineties comedy movie about a basketball-playing dog. It is a surprisingly accurate parallel. 

Heller was certainly more on top of her material in her own ‘off-JFL’ show in Montreal than she was when Chortle saw her far from home in a line-up bill at the Melbourne Comedy Festival earlier this year.  And while she’s not yet a ‘must see’, her placement in various ‘ones-to-watch’ list certainly seems justified.

She’s also got marketing down to a tee - vital in the industry maelstrom that is the Just For Last Festival - thanks to some funny and very offbeat business cards handed out at the door.

Review date: 26 Jul 2017
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