Rachel Bloom: What Am I Going To Do With My Life Now? | Gig review by Steve Bennett at Just For Laughs, Montreal
review star review star review star review star review blank star

Rachel Bloom: What Am I Going To Do With My Life Now?

Note: This review is from 2019

Gig review by Steve Bennett at Just For Laughs, Montreal

Seven years ago, Rachel Bloom came to Just For Laughs and admits she had a so-so gig. Seven years, one hit TV series and a Golden Globe later, and there is no such equivocation: this is a delightful, funny and mischievous show. 

Some of the numbers she performs were used – or cut –from her Netflix and CW musical comedy series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. She says she’s not going to explain the context as they’re only for fans, and she doesn’t need to pander to win any more.  That only sounds arrogant without her relaxed charisma, straddling the low and high status.

Actually, it doesn’t matter if you’ve seen the Emmy-winning show or not. Plus her determination not to win any more fans is doomed to fail, as no one will emerge from this winning mix of musical comedy and stand-up and not be a convert.

The format of this show – a fuller version of which she’s recently performed at the  Radio City Music Hall in New York and the London Palladium –  is very loose, with sections that barely link up. But each is hilarious. 

One moment she’s mocking a Missy Elliot rap, the next she’s surmising what songs her dog might write, reflecting the full disgusting reality of a canine’s life. Then she’s imagining the events that led up to a particularly niche bit of internet porn as if it were a heartwarming dreams-can-come-true bit of Broadway schmaltz.  

Disconnected they may be, but it’s enough that all her skits are bound together with her  playful personality. She’s fantastic company, joyful even when being cynical, charming even when being dirty and disarmingly honest about all of what makes her a flawed person, but at peace with all of it.

In the stand-up sections she mines her hang-ups, her Jewish background (she loves a Holocaust joke, and the pains she takes to justify them are funny in itself), her being a ‘garbage wife’ and more, all with a light cheeky touch.

These are interspersed with rich musical numbers spanning a gamut of styles, from 1920s speakeasy jazz, a dance-pop  number and full-on showtunes, including the banging showstopper I’m A Good Person, which effectively wraps up the underlying themes of the disparate sections in a toe-tapping celebration of positive self-delusion.

For a while she plays the piano, too, if not very well. Although she has a track about her shortcomings, it seems a waste of the high-end grand in the venue – at least until she’s joined by Jerome Kurtenbach, co-writer of some of the songs, for a more professional accompaniment.

There are no such qualms about the quality of her voice. And not only her voice – as she has a fine comic physicality, too, with her act-out of the apparently simple act of men slathering on sunscreen becoming an hilarious mime.

She is the full package, and while this show might sometimes seems skittish Bloom knows exactly what she’s doing. And that’s charming, entertaining and amusing you at every turn.

Review date: 28 Jul 2019
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

Live comedy picks

We see you are using AdBlocker software. Chortle relies on advertisers to fund this website so it’s free for you, so we would ask that you disable it for this site. Our ads are non-intrusive and relevant. Help keep Chortle viable.