On November 10th, the legendary comic Kathy Griffin performed a nearly sold-out show at London’s Palladium for her world tour: Laugh Your Head off.
The title promised everything that Ms.Griffin set out to deliver over the course of the night with non-stop laughter reverberating all around the theatre.
Beginning the night with a montage of everything she has accomplished over her 30-year career, it is a celebration and testament to her staying power in an industry that is obsessed with youth. Despite the overwhelming negative media attention she received for the controversial photo about the 45th president or as she likes to refer to him as “the precedent” or “It”. The thing that is clear is her fans’ love for her has never left.
With a simple stage set, Ms Griffin pranced into the show at 8 p.m. wearing the exact same blue cobalt dress from the infamous photo paired with a comfortable pair of flats that allowed her to move around the stage. Explicit, explosive and never dull; she tackles a wide range of subjects from pop culture, political hot topics, her media meltdown, the FBI investigation that followed, and a crowd favorite- her 90 year old drinking mother Maggie Griffin.
Watching Ms.Griffin perform felt like we were invited into her living room, where we had the privilege to listen to her unveil the horrors and joys of her life while keeping one eye peeled to her next door neighbors, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West driving their “babies in a Rolls-Royce golf cart”. For the record, Ms. Griffin now refers to herself as “pro-kardashian”.
Throughout the two hour long show, Ms. Griffin never shied away from controversy or backlash because at 57, she knows that she has exceeded everyone’s expectation of her especially her mother who only wanted her to be a “dental hygienist”. Her resilience and her determination to find humor in the darkest hours is the core theme of the show. Defiantly vulnerable at one moment about her relationship with Anderson Cooper then hilariously reading out death-threat letters in the next, Ms. Griffin wears her heart on her sleeve.
In all of the funny stories she recounts of having Sharon Stone, Gloria Steinem over for dinner and even playing a recorded clip of a plus one guest “speaking in tongues” after getting drunk. She makes the connection that all of us, in our most private and public moments are fallible; especially celebrities. At our best, we could afford to make light of the situation and in our worst, we can throw profanities with some crude gestures because no one is ever capable of escaping the hard times so might as well embrace it with humor.
Ending the night with a behind the scenes story about Mariah Carey and the viral New Year’s Eve performance, Ms. Griffin proves why she’s still at the top of her game, with or without Hollywood support.
-Summer Luk