Anitra and I caught Hasan Minhaj’s new show, The King’s Jester, last night at the Straz Center. Long story short: He’s still on top of his funny story-telling game, and still able to weave the hilarious, harrowing, and heartbreaking into a single, beautiful thread.
There were two shows in Tampa last night: one at 7:00 (the one we caught) and a second at 10:00. These were the second and third shows of the tour — the first one was on Friday in Miami — and it had all the energy of a brand new venture. There are still tickets for this afternoon’s show in Orlando at 5:30.
It may help if you know a little bit about the story where he spoke at the Time 100 gala in 2019 about how he called out Jared Kushner to speak to his buddy Prince Mohammed bin Salman “MBS” Al Saud (the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, with whom Kushner chats via WhatsApp) to free Loujain al-Hathloul, an activist imprison for championing women’s right to drive in Saudi Arabia:
If you want to find out how one joke got him into comedy — and how another almost got him out of it — you should catch this show. I don’t want to give away too much, but if you’re a fan of his Netflix show, Patriot Act, you’ll learn its secret origin in its show.
If you’re concerned about these shows being possible superspreader events, you may be pleased to know that:
- You need proof of a COVID-19 vaccination to be admitted.
- You need to wear a mask to attend the show (and no food or drink is allowed inside the auditorium.