Craig Ferguson returns to the Count Basie on Monday night — while Adam Mamawala is Tuesday’s featured performer for this month’s edition of Laugh at Lunch, on campus at Brookdale. (Ferguson photo by Michael Becker)
One’s a young Jerseyan whose comedy often revolves around his family’s South Asian heritage, and the culture clashes that tend to work their way between the generations. The other’s a Scottish-born veteran whose apparent inability to fully comprehend the American experience (this despite many years as a fixture on our TV screens) forms the delightful basis of his standup craft. Considered together, they’re an evening out/ morning after study in comic contrasts.
While he may have just ended his decade-long run as host of CBS’s Late Late Show — a Peabody Award-winning bully pulpit in which he took the art of the chatfest monologue to places it may never be taken again — Craig Ferguson remains highly visible on the syndicated game show Celebrity Name Game, a fitting forum for his absurdist adlibs and “outsider” brand of humor. He’s also making his presence felt on the theater standup circuit once more — and on Monday, February 9, the actor, screenwriter, filmmaker, novelist (and onetime presenter of a UK archaeology series) returns to the Count Basie Theatre for a whistlestop on his “Hot and Grumpy” Tour. It’s a 7:30 pm showtime, for which tickets ($25 – $95) can be reserved right here.
Tuesday schooldays aren’t generally thought of as a laughing matter, but the folks at the Brookdale Community College Student Life and Activities committee have succeeded in turning the once-bleak foothills of the week into a comedy-club atmosphere, courtesy the Laugh at Lunch series of celebrity comedy matinees at the Warner Student Life Center building.
The monthly standup sets have brought some of the nation’s best up-and-coming talents (and more than a few seasoned veterans of shows like Chelsea Lately) to the Lincroft campus, for matinee gigs that are offered up free of charge to anyone with a valid student ID — and on February 10, Adam Mamawala is the class clown of the cafeteria for a set that begins at high noon. The Laugh at Lunch series shifts to Thursday on March 5, when the Lincroft campus welcomes the TV tagteam known as Frangela — and returns to its Tuesday berth on April 7, with an appearance by the throughly unique “handy-capped” comedy duo (one stutters; the other’s got Tourettes…really) known as Preferred Parking.
