National Comedy Theatre

This place is a great time!!!

This was our first time to the theatre and we will definitely be back.  Sure, the venue wasn't the fanciest place, but that didn't stop us from having a great time.  

There were only a few minor issues.  First, when we arrived at 7:10 for the 7:30 show, there was a line the length of the entry hallway, almost to the door.  It was moving very slowly as people were paying to get in.  I had pre-purchased tickets online, so we were a little annoyed that we had to wait in the same as those who were buying on the spot.  However, after about 5 minutes, a worker showed up and started asking if anyone had reservations, and pulled us out of the line so he could usher us in.  (Thank you!  The group in front of us was 11 college aged kids each purchasing individual tickets)

The other minor issue was the upkeep in the bathrooms.  They could use to be majorly updated- the toilets and stalls anyway.   The rest of the decor was fine.

So on to the great stuff- the reason I am giving this 5 stars.  I brought my husband here for his birthday date.  He leans conservative, so I was glad for the 'brown bag' rule.  I'm thinking the fact that we were at the 7:30 time helped keep the content PG clean too.  Don't be fooled though- there was some outrageously funny stuff that was more adult humor that while the adults totally got, would easily not have been noticed by the under 12 crowd.  (There were 3 or 4 under 12 kids in our audience).

It is performed in a format very similar to "Who's line is it Anyway?" where the points don't matter, but there is a referee (like Drew Carey) that keeps the games moving along and stopping them when they need to end.  Audience participation is completely necessary, so I think the quality of the show does depend on the audience.  Luckily, there were several groups of people in our audience that knew each other so were able to make some funny and probably pre-planned (by the groups) suggestions.

The two 'teams' that compete are made up of 4 people each.  That means there are 8 people on stage (4 at a time) that are trying to be funny.  In our case, I'd say 7 of them were absolute winners, and one of them was trying a bit too hard. (The really tall dude)  There was one woman in the cast, and she was super hilarious- great job!  They all looked like they were having a good time- staying in 'character' well.

We came for the performance, not for the concessions (we had just eaten dinner prior to the show), so we did not peruse the food offerings.  We did see quite a few people coming in with popcorn, and one person with a beer, and a few with sodas, so we know they offer a variety of options.

We realize that this kind of comedy needs a perfect mix of great cast, great audience, and great suggestions, and we had the perfect mix for our show.  We plan to return and we brought some business postcards they had on a table and passed them out to a few of our friends.  Maybe we'll plan a big group date and help make another great show!

If you enjoy sitting in a silent dark room and listen to performers laugh at some inside jokes, this show is for you. I decided to take a last min road trip to visit my friends and after dinner we looked for the highest rated show in the area. DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE RATING!!!! We went to a 9:45 show on Saturday night, other than one large group of young adults, the crowd was obviously filled with a few parents and relatives of the performers (where I'm assuming all these 5 star ratings are from). The venue itself is pretty nice, very clean and nicely decorated. The poor young lady at the front desk was a little slow and couldn't really understand how the payment system worked, but you can let stuff like that pass because we were in no hurry. We then grabbed a beer and some candy, which was a nice addition had the show been any good. On that point, the selection of beer was pretty good. They had some nice local ones and your obvious pbr and coronas. My female friend wanted some wine but they had run out during the 7:45 show, the first red flag. Was the earlier show so bad that there was a run on all the wine? Did they make a run on the empty bottles to throw at the stage? Lord only knows, but we were about to fall down the pathetic rabbit hole and went to find our seats. The show started with warnings about using any bad language and them putting a bag on your head (confusing), for a late night show it felt very Draconian (let it slide). There is also the explanation of the silly point system that seems to matter very little to anyone(more confused). Now the "performances" were all disjointed, mostly mumbles and the only laughs were coming from the "team mates" on the stage. That is an awful way to watch a show. They would take suggestions from the audience but decided to go with some ridiculous obviously juvenile suggestions. You can't start a fire with Teddy Roosevelt as your fuel, uggggghhh YOU JUST CAN'T! Now after 30 min or so of some more awkward bumbling around the stage they decided to pick on a poor girl who was having a birthday party. Then for the next 30 min they called her husband fat, alluded to the fact that she was an alcoholic and suggested that her children were mentally handicapped. This took the show from wanting to be a family friendly experience (their words not mine) to a bad impression of Howard Stern trying to berate the audience member. This is just in bad taste and frankly just Awful!!! The funniest part of the night was a twitter feed had been set up to make fun of the performers, pretty hilarious. It's a very bad sign when at least half of the audience is on the Internet trying to find something funnier. The whole experience made me cringe for days. 5 days later I'm still fuming over the whole thing. They should scrap all the actors, stop trying to be non-topical and flush out all the bugs BEFORE the performances. Shame on you, FOR SHAME!!!!