Margaret Cho Profile
Tuesday night's Margaret Cho show at the Astor Theatre brought two comics who were not afraid to expose themselves emotionally to the audience. Cho and her warm-up act Ian Harvie are comics who draw deeply from their lived experience as minorities and use this status as a mirror to reflect some of life's absurdities.
Harvie's set drew on his life as a trans man; talking of cock shopping, dealing with TSA officers manhandling his sex toys and life in LA, where people have no problems with his trans status, but he needs to hide the fact he underwent hair transplant surgery.
Cho took the stage sporting a new haircut that apparently all the women in her family acquire in their 40s. While this was a funny set, it was weaker than her previous shows. Cho seemed very reliant on name dropping, including bits where she discussed all the famous men she had slept with.
However, this is not to say the show was not funny. Cho is in her wheelhouse when talking about issues such as body image, the ethnic experience and her family, with some powerful stories about meeting her childhood abuser. Cho knows her audience and plays to them with aplomb.
Margaret Cho: The PsyCHO Tour is at Australian venues to 12 Sep.
