Rory Scovel is a quality comedian that needs to find his comedy voice. In his first stand-up comedy CD or MP3, Dilation, he jumps around several different styles seemingly trying to find the one that works for him. He’s adequate in all of them, but noticeably exceptional in the 420 comedy department. mp3 at Amazon
The album starts off slow with average-quality jokes about Chinatown and one-liners about his girlfriend. Then Scovel starts to pick it up in the track Drive when he introduces his Southern character that he pulls out from time to time when the joke calls for him; he’s almost always funny when he uses this device. Then Scovel really gets going when he hits his marijuana material in Relax/Sit.
In his longest and funniest track, the comic jokes almost exclusively about the experience of going to 3D movies stoned. Just about all of the jokes in here are hilarious, especially when he analyzes the validity of the movie Step It Up in both the sober and high state of mind and when he brings his Southern character back to poke fun of people using 3D glasses outside of the theater environment.
From there, this comedy CD starts going downhill. Continuing the pot jokes, Rory Scovel has some funny, though outdated, jokes about Michael Phelps and the unrealistic prospect of becoming a famous swimmer. And then Scovel starts to abandon the pot jokes and start using more audience interaction and one-liners for much of the remaining set. Unfortunately, he’s not as successful in these areas.
The first audience interaction is initiated by a loud listener. Rory Scovel responds with a funny line that makes everybody laugh, and that seemed to have given him false hope, as he continues to talk with the same member far longer than his material lasted. He goes back to this tactic later in the Wake Up track and it flat out just doesn’t work. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with the material that he’s given, and he shouldn’t try to force it.
He also tries throwing out one-liners here and there, but because they’re so out of the blue, the audience often doesn’t recognize them for what they are and expects more from the bit. Some of them are funny, but most of them are worth getting cut from the act.
Rory Scovel needs to work on what type of comic he is and stick with it, but regardless, this is an above-average comedy mp3 album that will provide a lot of laughs, especially if you enjoy 420 humor.
Dilation
Rory Scovel
Stand-up comedy mp3 and CD
Stand up! Records 2011
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