As anyone who reads the Daily Links will know, I'm a huge fan of The Daily Show and its host Jon Stewart (and have been for many years, even back when its host was Craig Kilborn)- it's certainly the best thing on TV at the moment (yes: even better than Lost). Which why I was very pleasantly suprised when my sometimes extremely lovely/othertimes extremely hostile flatmate just showed up and gave me a Loge (ie-awesome+v.hard to get) ticket to the show! I was very excited, and based on the enormous queue outside the theatre, pretty lucky to get tickets at all.
The show opened with excerpts from The Daily Show's take on the London bombings, which I'd not only seen before, but also posted in the daily links at the time- so not much new for me there. Then Jon came out and chatted for a bit, and said he was going to read some excerpts from his book America: A Guide to Democracy Inaction, which I guess this was pretty much a promotion for (the background was just an enormous projection of the book). Unfortunately, I'd read the book in like April, so while it was something of a treat to have Jon Stewart read it to me (it's also always nice to be in a laughing crowd), I'd heard all the jokes before. He also invited out the producer and head writer of the Daily Show to read with him.
It seemed like the three or them were having fun up on stage, which is always a good way for the crowd to have fun- it's a nice energy between performer and observer. But I did feel that they could have done more than just read verbatim from the book. I mean, the guy is a trained actor and stand-up comedian, surely he could have learned the lines as a routine and performed them? I guess it felt lazy. I've since heard that it's not uncommon in America to just have 'audiences' with famous people, like, they just show up and that's the show. But c'mon, Neil Gaiman does that for free- why should I pay to listen to someone's book promotion? I guess I expected a little more, uhm, effort?
Interesting side note: Woody Harrelson also jumped up from the crowd and joined in with the reading at one point, which was quite neat. He was obviously having a ball, as well.
After that they opened the floor up to questions, which was initially extremely funny and Jon was obviously having a good time chatting to folks (the audience seemed to be comprised overwhelmingly of Americans, interestingly). But then something happened, it's hard to pin down, but the best way I can describe it is that Jon...lost his patience? Like he was suddenly very tired or something, and there was a series of particularly inane questions. He put his head in his hands, and from that point on just gave people very short, sharp answers that actually sounded quite irritated (or at least very tired) and then cut the questions off and ended the show. It was kind of disconcerting and a little disappointing. Again, perhaps after having seen so many plays and concerts that consist of people trying their very hardest to entertain the audience have just spoiled me, raised my expectations to such a degree that I was simply unaccustomed to this kind of event- expectation being the death of happiness and all. But then, the guy is an entertainer, and the nature of that profession should make one very wary about becoming complacent.
I should clarify that I still like Jon Stewart a great deal. An enormous amount, in fact. TDS is still my favourite show. But I like him a little less than I did when I went in, which is not a good impression for a live show to impart.
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i was wondering if you were going to make it to the show. i was gong to try and go last minute, but now i'm glad i didn't. stink that he didn't put a good performance.
"why should I pay to listen to someone's book promotion?"... Err... you didn't pay, it was a free ticket, remember?
So no matter how good/bad/indifferent a review you give it, the 'at least it didn't cost me anything' argument must be included. Well I think so anyway. I never pay into shows, I always get freebies, so I tend to be very generous with my critiques of them! :-)
Er, the tickets cost £25 and someone paid for them, whether it was me or anyone else is totally irrelevant to the quality of the performance.
If you write critiques of bands (or restaurants or comedy shows or whatever) and you are overly generous to them because you paid nothing for them, I'd lose faith in your critiques.
Oh right. Dunno how clear you made it that someone, indeed, had paid.
I don't generally write critiques of shows, if I liked it, I'll generally tell you so. If it was shit, it won't matter whether or not I got a freebie for it, I'll tell you it was shit. I've also seen shows, through going for free or working on them, that were so amazing I couldn't even begin to describe them.
Basically my critiques vary between '......' (ie lost for words), and 'shite'.
Bleak that Jon Stewart was a let down! And i such an awful, impatient way - I mean, fair enough if you're frustrated, but don't give up on an entire audience just because of a couple of random inane questions.
It smacks of laziness, as does the reading bit you mentions, like you say. What a pity, seems like he had his chance to impress and kinda blew it.
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That'll teach me for throwing laziness stones...
Sounds like it was a show he was forced to do by a publcisit rather than somethinghe wanted to do.
Still, you'd kind expect to get your money's worth either way.
Sorry Matthew, I didn't mean to imply that I thought your opinions on things could be bought or sold for cheap tickets. I thought it was a poor show, ticket price notwithstanding.
I should also clarify that I just think Jon was having an off day, probably coupled with the fact that he was getting bombarded with often unanswerable, often anti-American questions, well, that would have pissed me off, too. I didn't mean to bash Jon- I was just saying what I saw.
No worries dude, I thought your reply was more directed at the 'other readers' of your blog. But I still had to defend my honour!
I wasn't there, but I'd say Jon is more used to Americans 'WOO-HOO'-ing and 'GO JON, GO JON'-ing and the like, and when people started actually asking him questions he had to think about he might have been thrown a little. Possibly.
(I always blame the stupid Americans if I can... just the stupid ones though, not the smart ones)