Michelle Wolf

JFL42, Royal Theatre, Toronto ON, September 21

BY Julianna RomanykPublished Sep 22, 2017

7
Most famous for being a correspondent on The Daily Show, Michelle Wolf definitely has a smart sense of humour, but sometimes her jokes elicit more reactions of "Oh, I see what you did there" than hard laughs. Her ability to delve into edgy stuff like otter rape and abortion was impressive, but this hour won't stand out as one of the best of the festival.
 
Following a wild tale from Che Durena about having sex with a married woman in Mexico, Wolf started off her performance with a somewhat meta bit where she told the crowd what she knew about Toronto, then deconstructed how doing that would help us relate to her. Awkward but endearing, it was a cute palate cleanser before she got into her more blue and political material.
 
From then on, each sharply funny joke she told was matched by an average one. Wolf's material about penises fitting into vaginas like feet into shoes was unsurprising yet solid, but her joke about men being too dumb to realize that manspreading infringes on other people's space ended up going on one too many tangents about male stupidity to be consistently fresh. Similarly, her comedy about which people give good massages and how fountains are ridiculously extravagant had people cackling, but her material about how men are stronger than women and how men deserve to feel pretty were more factual that funny.
 
Wolf's show seesawed between being forgettable and fantastic, but at the end of it all, it averaged out to be satisfactory.

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