Veteran stand-up comedian and winner of season four of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, Josh Blue sold out a five-show engagement this past weekend at the Columbus Funny Bone, the very same club at which he’d first appeared as a headliner early in his career.
Blue’s exceptionally funny set during his first performance on Friday night wove in anecdotes about his family, relationships, and living with cerebral palsy.
“People have said that maybe I focus on my disability too much in my comedy,” he quipped. “But no matter what, my comedy will always be from the point of view of a person with a disability.”
“Besides, I once tried doing my show from the point of view of a southern belle,” he joked. “It didn’t turn out right.”
Blue employed a number of masterfully placed call-backs throughout the night, a standard practice in his routine, as he explained during our conversation in a show preview interview last week. His improvised banter with the evening’s full house, including a hilarious bit when he paused the show for several minutes when an audience member got up and left to use the restroom mid-set. “I’ll wait for you,” he teased as they exited. The crowd roared as Blue bade his time by tracing his finger along the bricks on the stage wall and looking around the venue. It was proof that the comedic subtlety of doing almost nothing off-the-cuff can be just as funny as the jokes themselves, if the timing’s right.
And for the record, Blue’s is impeccable.
Blue’s latest hour-long special Delete, is available via his official website. He is also currently co-hosting an unscripted digital series, High Cuisine, on Verizon’s go90 mobile network, a cooking competition where chef contestants are plied with marijuana before entering a studio kitchen to prepare plant-based recipes.
Looking for more laughs? Check out the Funny Bone events calendar to see what comedians are headed to Columbus in 2018!