The Tab Reviews ‘Who Am I?’

Corpus playroom was full before the start of the show.

On stage there was a table, two chairs, a mop, and a photo of two kids projected on the wall. It was intriguing, how was Orlando Gibbs going to use this set? I was overwhelmed with enthusiasm. It turned out that the furniture was there for another play, but the mop was useful to clean a spill of alcohol-free beer during the show.

With a title like “Who Am I?,” I was expecting an autobiographical monologue addressing and satirizing the issues and anxieties associated with entering adulthood, a  coming-of-age parable. The show was nothing like that. And I was thankful for that, because, as a twenty-something years old, I find pre-adulthood adolescent wisdom quite piteous.

Sorry, who are you?

Orlando Gibbs is an amazingly charismatic performer. He knows how to engage and interact with the audience, and, at times, he is able to make the audience laugh without saying anything. Orlando only needed to say “hello” and the audience started laughing.

The show started with a chain of entertaining anecdotes. He spoke about the inconvenience of sharing an alarm clock, his favorite dips, how he got drunk with alcohol-free beer due to the placebo effect. He also read a hilarious complaint letter from a camel with a dry hump. The entire room was laughing and some were giggling hysterically.

The second half of the show contained standard self deprecating humour and anecdotes about sexual inadequacies and social awkwardness. Most of the jokes were quite predictable, but well-timed. I missed the originality of the themes in the first half of the show.

The stand-up routine devolved into a bunch of disjointed gags, but at the of the show, Orlando put them together in a beautiful conclusion that let the audience clapping euphorically.

Unfortunately, the finale was a little cheesy, and a few of Orlando’s jokes fell flat. The routine was not able to bring the audience a steady laughter throughout the show, but, to be fair, we probably all had a bad case of the Mondays.

Overall, “Who I Am?” was an impressive first solo stand-up performance. I really enjoyed it and I am excited to see more stand-up by Orlando Gibbs.

72% – A decent first.