From the mailroom to the boardroom, they used to say about unbelievable ascents up an organization’s ranks. How’s about, from the HR division to the standup stage? That’s the trajectory traced at Netflix by staffer turned comic Leslie Liao, who appeared on the streamer’s Verified Standup showcase final yr whereas nonetheless working in its personnel workplace. She has since give up, though some deeply felt materials right here remembers the inanities of workplace life, and her tendency to cry when sacking folks – not an ideal qualification for an HR position.
So is she higher suited to the comedy stage? On this proof, very a lot so – even when the Californian arrives in London with a number of brief membership units not but woven right into a coherent hour. There’s a working joke about what the theme of the present is – Liao ventures a number of unlikely prospects – serving primarily to spotlight that there’s no theme in any respect, only a assortment of routines piled atop each other till the sunshine flashes 60 minutes and Liao leaves the stage.
That absence – of construction, narrative, massive thought – places stress on the jokes, to which Liao’s sometimes rise. A lot of the fabric addresses life as an (till lately) single 37-year-old, “micro-dosing parenthood” as an auntie, on the courting apps, feeling solidarity for all the opposite girls “fixing one another’s future husbands” in short-lived relationships. Some routines – the one about nineties R&B; the one about her (hypothetical) mafia parenting type – really feel underdeveloped, dissipating after they would possibly dig deeper. However there are events when Liao units herself at arrestingly sharp angles to fashionable life, just like the routine about how sleeping preparations shaft single folks, or the one which questions girls’s choices when in search of safety from threatening males.
That is all achieved with relaxed informality on Liao’s half, an infectious giggle and a cheerful receptiveness to the novelty of this maiden London efficiency. This recovering HR skilled could also be hoping she’s put the world of efficiency value determinations behind her, so I’ll hold mine transient: her set is neither adventurous nor nicely crafted, however Liao’s open and interesting method makes it a wonderfully companionable hour.
