Jonathan Van Ness: November 6th, 2019 (Live)

I’d just finished watching the first three seasons of Queer Eye when I saw online that Jonathan Van Ness was going to be doing a standup show not too far away from me. I admittedly that no idea what Jonathan would be like as a standup comic, but I knew I didn’t want to pass up the chance to see him live.

Again, I couldn’t predict what a JVN standup show would be like, but now having seen it, I’d say it fit him to a tee. There were numerous points where it didn’t necessarily feel like standup, but a) it definitely felt like Jonathan Van Ness and b) it was still very funny. There were jokes, there were personal and social observations, there were meandering anecdotes, there were dirty non-sequitirs, there were pop culture references, there was political commentary, there were ensemble changes, there were life lessons, there were Queer Eye stories, and yes, there was gymnastics.

For starters, Jonathan’s performing style is both very loose and very upfront. He let us know right away that he had notes taped to the floor, he admitted that he loves bringing up the house lights to see the crowd but that the size of the audience simultaneously “scares the shit out of [him,]” and he noted several lines as “hard-right” improvs that got way dirtier than he was expecting. This is an aspect of his career that’s still very much in-progress; his warm-up act, Naomi Ekperigin (who was hilarious,) performed a set that was clearly more polished and put-together than his was.

But Jonathan’s authenticity has always been one of his strongest features on Queer Eye, and that continued to serve him well here. He had the (packed) house eating out of his hand when he performed an extended depiction of the “conversations” his hair- and skincare products have with him in the shower or admitted in a small voice, “I think the number of dicks I’ve sucked has a comma in it.” He charmed us when, after a “quick change,” he cheerfully informed us that he was going to run offstage for a second to adjust his spanx. Even if his routines were sometimes only tangentially related to the theme he was assigning them, and even if he sometimes got distracted and had to wind his way back to what he was talking about, the show was no less funny or engaging for it.

Over the course of the night, he covered a wide range of topics that are well within his wheelhouse. He had some good hairdresser stories (as well as some good terrible-day-jobs-while-going-to-hairdressing-school stories!) and dished on celebrities whose hair he’s done (but only naming the ones who were nice.) He had a long routine on his reactions to his very unexpected fame and the parts of himself he’s still trying to figure out in light of that fame. He discussed social media and dating, he told amusing Baby Jonathan stories (both elementary and high school editions,) and he used video clips from a roller dancing competition to comment on the state of America from 2016 to the present. Oh yeah, and he lectured us for not having an appropriately-aghast reaction to his admission of a childhood longing to try a 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner.

Just a great night. I didn’t know what to expect going in, but afterwards, it was clear that it never could’ve been anything else.