The show began with the creators of Adorable, Celeste Yim, Kelly DeHoop, and Lucas Loizou, stepping onstage for the introduction. Unfortunately, what was left of the initial pleasant aura distilled down to moments of awkwardness. It was evident that the three did not go up with a strict game plan; their humour relied mostly on the reactionary, and although this showed the audience their brewing charisma and chemistry, it felt largely underwhelming at times. Often the buildup to a joke would dissolves into inaudible murmurs or the speaking over of one another, leaving the audience unsure of when to laugh.
Lucas Loizou was the night’s host, and he handled this role with ease. Using a blend of self-deprecation and comical insights into particular observations, Loizou was an endearing yet non-showy host that transitioned smoothly in between the talented line-up of comics. Speaking of which, the show’s highlight absolutely rested upon the comics that provided the audience with a diverse range of styles and personalities. All of them struck up a buzzing level of laughter throughout the night, a few being particularly memorable. James Elias Island was one of them, as he was eccentric with inflections of wit and cleverness. His encounters with “white racism” and the severity of the Star Wars franchise elicited laughter from slight chuckles to the uproarious. Lauren Mitchell struck the audience in a similar manner, but through a blunt attitude that she personified throughout her set. Carrying momentum with the first laugh, Mitchell was relentless, hounding the audience with her animated personality and constant cracks at her age and forward personality. Perhaps the crowd favourite was Jhanelle Dennis. Unlike Mitchell or Island, Dennis’s humour derived from her ability as an adept storyteller, accentuating the most menial of situations. Her smooth build-ups to the stories of ordinary situations like the proper categorization of Pringles or her Twitter feud with food companies mesmerized the audience before hitting them with hyperbolic punch lines that awoke them in sudden laughter.
The show concluded with Loizou, DeHoop, and Yim up on stage again, thanking the audience for coming out whilst giving one last hurrah of haphazard jokes that again descended into awkward pauses. The ending wasn’t particularly polished, but perhaps this is indicative of what the trio set out to do with Adorable: to facilitate a fun, effervescent show in an intimate space. It would be rude to succumb to the joke by saying their efforts were adorable, because Adorable achieved much more than its namesake. In an organic show of comedy, Adorable provided a night of laughter and fun. Amid the stresses of UofT, what more can you ask for?
