Unlike past years, I haven’t been blown away or caught off-guard by anyone I’ve seen at Bridgetown this year. At least so far, that is; hopefully that’ll change tonight.
A quick survey of the bigger shows I caught over the past few days: I was pleased enough with Theme Park‘s improv last night, even if a good chunk of said pleasure came from placing the group’s semi-famous members (hey, it’s Moist from Dr. Horrible! Hey, it’s Oscar from The Office! Hey, it’s that one guy who was on those two episodes of Party Down!). Friday night, I dug Lance Bangs’ rare comedy footage—which included promising-but-failed pilots for shows featuring John Hodgman, David Cross, and Patton Oswalt—to the extent that I wish Bangs had just shown his home movies for two hours and not bothered sandwiching his videos between limp, interminable sets from Fred Armisen and Kristen Schaal. (That’s a weird thing to say at a live comedy festival, I know, but hey, there you have it: Bangs’ footage was great, fresh, and funny, while Schaal’s set was forced and overlong and Armisen didn’t even seem to be trying.) Last night’s late-night lineup at the Tabor was impressively mediocre—there was sleeping in the audience—except for a too-brief set by Keith Lowell Jensen, who managed to (A) do some jokes about Portland that were actually funny, and (B) kick some much-needed excitement into the room. He’s got another set tonight at 8 at Bar of the Gods.
Other solid bets for tonight: Courtney already has it covered, with mentions of Comedy is OK and Iron Comic, along with the 9 pm show at the Eagles Lodge. That last one will feature, among others, Bridgetown founder Andy Wood and Jon Daly, who hopefully will bust out his Bill Cosby-Bukowski character one last time.
