Mike Birbiglia: Thank God for Jokes

Who is this Mike Bir-Bi-Glia? I've heard of him, but not really! I've seen him somewhere, but not sure where! So when this title came up on my Netflix channel as something that I may be interested in, I thought, "Heck, it's got God in the title, so it could be another fun night of religion bashing by some vaguely known comedian!"

Well, it was better than that. This Bir-Bi-Glia comedian is a gem to be treasured. His cheeky grin and wry sense of humour had me hooked from the word go. Most importantly, is the timing, how he spreads his stories around and they all interconnect in a beautiful subtle way. He doesn't rush, but strolls through his tales of life's ups and downs, but mostly his unfortunate events that he turns to comedy gold. Better still, he involves his audience and utilizes them perfectly into his act.

By the end, I knew this Mike Birbiglia. I knew where he has been, and I now know where he will be going (definitely not on a David O. Russell film set).

I wont even touch her material, I believe a great comedian could work on that to make it passable, but she was so out of timing that it was embarrassing. It seems someone wrote that for his and he never worked on it to gather the reaction of the audience and learn the timing of the bits... Not sure what's the truth, but it was not funny at all.

At first it's alright, he has a few fun things to say, but then he pointlessly starts asking a guy in the audience what he was arrested for, he answers he was a arrested by a female cop and this guy just has to go all beta and drag the "female cop" thing for wayyy too long. He calls the guy "obnoxious" just for saying "female cop", does the obligatory beta male comedian female pandering and just... keeps going sticking to this for way to long, without actually saying anything funny about it - just defensive beta statements, like someone just accused him of a metoo thing. Really derailed the whole special. Cringe. If he had funny jokes afterwards it could've picked back up but apparently his funny material was about 10 minutes long, yet this special is an hour.

I only knew his post-2020 material before watching this and I thought his earlier material would be similar. This was not the case though. His later stuff is a lot better.

I thought the audience interactions were horrible. Every single one of them. The first one with the group of people who were late was clearly staged. They won't let you in when you're late during a recording of a Netflix special.

But the worst part was when he was standing next to the guy with the cop story. You could really tell that he was angry at the guy, which was kind of unprofessional. The scene was also way too long and you could tell even the audience was tired of it. One could really feel the audience cringe during that scene. Not sure why it was included. I cringed so hard during that scene I had to turn it off.

After watching this show, I will now look for more Mike Birbiglia. As he notes - he's a niche - but this is what great comedy sounds like, so it would be great if this niche became the norm. Excellent jokes, well written with a low-key delivery that doesn't get tiring. The most magnetic aspect is his humanity that he boldly interjects throughout and brings to the front at the end. Bring your class act to Alberta!! You can even call it Catberta, because cats.