This was a big-time charity gig in America and they clearly do things differently there. The audience is sitting at posh tables, there are chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and, hey, isn't that Jeff Goldblum in the audience? Seth Rogen's annual Alzheimer's fundraiser is certainly a starry affair.
But that doesn't mean it is a well-behaved tasteful one. A very long opening gag is about Rogen vaping through his pee hole. It's a funny joke to start with but it goes on way, way too long. Then again, Rogen is the organiser so if anyone is allowed to be indulgent it is him. And in fairness he is also happy to send himself up in sketches, whether it is subverting his stoner image or joking about being mistaken for Jonah Hill.
Elsewhere the highlights of the show are the more conventional stand-ups. Michael Che - coming to the UK in July – is cool, calm and sharp on race, even if his routine about being chatted up by a gay man in a bar felt a tiny, little bit un-PC (why should being chatted up by a gay man even be of note?). Michelle Wolf felt more on brand with a riff about #metoo, suggesting it has gone on since the world was created. Heck, maybe even God is not always respectful to women.
John Mulaney - best suit of the night, no contest – also touched on recent controversies, recalling how when he was being tested for cancer (he's fine now) he had to sit his wife down and tell her that he had some scary news but that everything was going to be alright, realising that recently this has taken on a whole different context for performers.
Sarah Silverman, as one would expect, pushed the taste envelope, althought for her maybe not as much as one might have expected. Talking about her dog licking up her "post-coital detritus" is fairly run-of-the-Silverman, while a riff about having a meal with Kanye was as much humblebrag as edgy stand-up. Tiffany Haddish has also been hanging with the stars, telling a story about meeting another big music name.
Perhaps the most interesting appearance of the night - apart from The Muppets – was Sacha Baron Cohen doing a natural history spoof as "David Attenborat" in which he put the behaviour of Rogen under the microscope - cue more dick jokes and gags at the host's expense. It wasn't exactly sophisticated comedy, and by his own admission Baron Cohen thought he sounded less like David Attenborough and more like a Chinese Winston Churchill, but it seemed to sum up the tone of the night. Let's hope the gross out humour grossed plenty of money. You still can donate here.
Hilarity For Charity is streaming now on netflix.
