The last time Louis CK performed major UK gigs, he breathed the rarefied air of prestige standup superstardom. Arena-sized venues notwithstanding, things aren’t like that now. The gilded crown slipped in 2017, when five women accused CK of sexual misconduct. The comic expressed remorse – then carried on gigging. But audiences can’t un-know what we know about his behaviour – and the affair seems to have drained the dash of idealism that once offset CK’s mostly mordant work.
Aside from his intro, which announces “the disgraced, disgusting Louis CK”, his transgressions go unmentioned this evening. Perhaps CK got all that off his chest with his self-released 2020 special. And yet, they’re the palpable ghost at the feast of his jokes about dating, or about his taste in pornography – both of which routines practically beg for CK to acknowledge what we’re all thinking.
He doesn’t: we must content ourselves instead with gags about the appropriateness of CK, aged 55, dating younger women, and about “fart porn”. If you’re looking for high-mindedness, you won’t get it here. The comedy is ventured in the style of a man ruminating aloud on morality, religion and sex. But the thought experiments seem less to reflect CK’s sincere curiosity, and more just to bee-line towards sordid or ethically queasy terrain – as when he mimes kicking a three-year-old to death (what larks!) or imagines an abortion law requiring people to eat their aborted foetuses.
That’s not to deny that queasy can be very funny, certainly in the hands of a standup with CK’s easy authority – see the routine marvelling that Auschwitz now has a Twitter account. But it often feels like CK is just leapfrogging from one callous construct to another (from cannibalism, to murder, to child abuse … ) seldom lingering long enough to develop his thinking, or his humour, beyond casual misanthropy.
In which context, the most memorable moments are the least grim – such as the section that finds CK leafing through his Bible, to alight on a sparkling set-piece about Jesus cursing a fig tree. It’s one of several thrilling flashes of what audiences once loved about CK – but you’ve got to tough out the cynicism to get to them.
