Mulaney isn’t a topical or personal comic, but he dabbles in both, getting laughs out of hot-take premises like why old people shouldn’t vote: “Would you order for the table if you were about to leave the restaurant?” But his greatest strength here is as a sharp, hilarious cultural critic. There’s a very funny bit on “The Wizard of Oz” and a spectacular unpacking of the demonic possession genre that will make you never see “The Exorcist” the same way again.
Rising Stars
Part of the fun of big festivals is seeing performers on the rise. They tend to be hungrier, harder working, funnier. Opening for Jeselnik, Megan Gailey made a persuasive case for Charles Barkley as the Democrats’ best hope for president and had a funny joke about how men won’t shut up about their colonoscopies. “Colonoscopy?” she asked, unimpressed. “That’s what Catholic girls call college.”
At the intimate Lab at the Hollywood Improv, the very funny Sophie Buddle waded into a joke that mentioned transgender people, then paused to wonder if it would be amusing if she became as obsessed with the subject as Chappelle is. “I’m not famous enough to have opinions that crazy,” she joked, “but if I get famous, I’m going to start an even bigger fight with an even smaller group of people.”
Music
Speaking of Chappelle, whose political views were mocked at multiple shows, including by the cracked clowns of the show “Stamptown,” he delivered a work-in-progress hour that covered President Trump, forgiveness and his failed attempt to get Chris Rock and Will Smith to reconcile on “Saturday Night Live.” And yes, he was still relitigating past scandals. Chappelle generates so much discourse that one of his central legacies is often ignored. No other comic has done more to incorporate music into comedy shows. He featured music acts on his sketch show and made the concert documentary “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party,” and he’s kept this up in his live sets. Here, he played the role of M.C. as well as comic, introducing tight sets by Black Star, Killer Mike and Lizzo, who performed her hits before ending with a collaboration in which she played the flute and Chappelle led the crowd in breathing exercises. (Lizzo said Chappelle had invited her an hour before.)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
No one in the Trump administration (including possibly the president himself) took more hits at the festival than the health secretary. The return of the measles got a lot of attention as did imitations of his voice, not to mention his friendships with various comedian podcasters. Sarah Silverman called him the world’s “oldest nepo baby” and read poems the journalist Olivia Nuzzi has said Kennedy wrote for her. Jeff Ross imitated his gravelly voice at the roast. And Mulaney borrowed one of Trump’s favorite expressions, saying Kennedy cheated on his wife “like a dog,” then Mulaney mocked the crowd for gasping. “First 20 rows of the Hollywood Bowl with the pearl clutch? Is that the line for you? He may poison children but a Kennedy cheating?”
Theater
The growing ambition of standup comedy this century is due in no small part to the rise of the solo show, dominated by personal confession or narrative storytelling. Jerrod Carmichael has been at the forefront of this movement, shifting from conventional club sets to intimate, conversational jokes. His new hour at the festival was unpolished, moving awkwardly between stories about his relationship to stale punchlines about Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. But he explored his central theme — the deeply unromantic side of love — with enough comic insight to intrigue.
To open her chaotic solo show about getting breast cancer, Grace Helbig carried a giant photo of Hugh Jackman, which set a theatrical and somewhat random mood. A charismatic personality, she told the story of her fame as a YouTuber, before revealing her illness. Interestingly, the show is darker about life as a content creator, with a certain grimness about internet fame lurking beneath her frenetic, self-deprecating delivery, a point that could be explored more. She said getting sick provided a relief of sorts, a fascinating idea that she tossed out, then quickly moved on from, like someone scrolling from one video to the next.
