Paul F. Tompkins' "Laboring Under Delusions" is still one of the best comedy specials I've ever seen
I love Paul F. Tompkins. I think he’s one of the best comedians working today. Craig and I re-watched his 2012 Comedy Central special Laboring Under Delusions a couple of nights ago, and it still makes us cackle with laughter. I’d say that while it may not beat any of John Mulaney’s specials, it comes up very close behind them.
I didn’t always love Tompkins as a comedian. I’d known him from Mr. Show but that was about it, and when I heard people talk about what a good comedian he was, I tried listening to his albums and I just… didn’t get it. I could tell the audiences in the recordings were loving him, but his jokes just weren’t doing anything for me.
It wasn’t until I saw Laboring Under Delusions in 2014 that I realized the reason I didn’t get him at first was that you really need to see him perform in order to get the full experience. So much of Tompkins’ performance is physical, and I don’t mean that it’s slapstick. Don’t get me wrong, his actual jokes are also excellent, but a lot of what makes his jokes work well are his facial expressions — he reacts to something he just said or over exaggerates a physical movement he makes in the telling of his story. Many of the times on his albums that the audience seemed to be laughing at nothing, Tompkins was actually still in the joke, doing a very precise, very funny physical performance to go along with it.
When I started dating Craig, he also didn’t get Tompkins, but I forced him to watch Laboring (which he agreed to because our relationship was new and he wanted me to like him), and he immediately agreed with me that Tompkins is great and that audio albums just don’t do him justice.
I’m not going to spoil any of the jokes from Laboring for you, because they really should be experienced for the first time coming from Tompkins himself. I will say that the through-line of the special is him talking about all the jobs he’s held over the course of his life, and that there is one line about working on the movie There Will Be Blood that Craig and I regularly quote to each other to this day.
The first time I saw Laboring, I finally understood all the hype around Tompkins, and I immediately bought tickets to see him perform at the JFL 42 festival in 2014 (with the lovely Anne T. Donahue who subscribes to this newsletter, hi Anne!). He was by far my favourite show of the festival, and I had tears of laughter running down my face. Tompkins eventually turned that show into another Comedy Central special called Crying and Driving, which I watched and loved, but CC cut out a lot of it to make it 42 minutes — I’ve been waiting impatiently FOR YEARS for Tompkins to release the full version. At some point I’ll accept that it’s never happening, but gosh, it was great.
If you haven’t seen it already (and even if you have!), you should definitely rent or buy Laboring Under Delusions on iTunes or wherever. Don’t look up clips on YouTube first! Watch the whole thing! Trust me.
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That’s all for me today, gorgeous. Talk to you soon.
Love,
Kat
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