Kathy Griffin Review: Perfect For Pop Culture Fans

On Saturday August 7th, I was able to catch the performance of Kathy Griffin at the Verizon Wireless Theater in Houston, TX. Griffin currently has an Emmy award-winning series on Bravo titled My Life On The D-List which chronicles her attempts to move up from her current “D-List” status to become an “A-Lister” by any means necessary. This usually includes networking and becoming friends with established “A-Listers” such and gaining publicity by saying controversial things or, occasionally, calling the paparazzi on herself (anonymously). Over the years Kathy Griffin has gained a huge following by constantly touring and performing all over the nation.

The August 7th show was perfect for anybody who loves to keep up with pop culture and entertainment. Over the course of her hour and a half performance she covered a variety of topics that most people would be familiar with. She talked about Lindsey Lohan and her court appearance (she believes that the fingernail message was the idea of Lindsey’s hairdresser that thought it would be funny and nobody would notice). She talked about Mel Gibson’s taped conversation in which she assumed he was making the phone calls while running on a treadmill to explain the way he was breathing (which she acted out for the audience) and she discussed The Jersey Shore cast members at length focusing especially on the fact that she has been around them that they smell awful and didn’t want to touch them for fear they are probably sticky.

It’s hard to name all of the topics and people Kathy Griffin discussed as she tends to jump from topic to topic on a whim and throw in references but some of the major topics she covered were Real Housewives of New Jersey, Toddlers and Tiaras, I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant, Ryan Seacrest dating Julianne Hough and her “relationship” with Levi Johnston. One of the best bits she did was about an appearance on The View in which she explained that she is only allowed on that show when Barbara Walters is gone because Walters hates her. She went on to explain that she was given seven minutes to talk and hock her wares and was not even paying attention to the hostesses. Then when there was one minute remaining Elizabeth Hasselbeck tried to ambush her, and she got the upper hand on Hasselbeck. It was really a very funny story and if you YouTube it you can see Hasselbeck was actually very rude throughout the interview.

If you like pop culture and especially like to hear gossip and backstage stories about celebrities, Griffin’s show is certainly one to catch. As long as there is something happening in the news she will always have fresh material. Her manner of speaking is very conversational and she does not seem to be able to edit herself and speaks as you might when speaking to close friends. However, as I said, she can be unedited and might offend some people. She might also be considered vulgar by a great deal of people although some of that might stem from her being female as I have heard much worse out of male performers without so much controversy. If you are not up on pop culture you might really get lost in her routine. Also, she tends to segue from story to story, sometimes within a story. She might start talking about one thing and that reminds her of another entire story and then comes back to the original later. I have found some people do not respond to this non-linear way of speaking.

Overall, the performance was pretty good. Griffin performed for an hour and a half with no pauses or breaks. I have seen her before and this was not her best show. Some of the material did not seem quite polished. However, I did see her on Last Comic Standing a couple of days later using some of the same material but more polished. It would appear to me that this audience was a test for new material. This would be the perfect show for those that are not easily offended and love pop culture. But if you tend to be easily offended or don’t like pop culture you might want to steer clear.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate the performance a 7.5 due to its lack of polish

Review By: jmcharries