Honesty gets you pretty far in this world. Is it because we all lie just a little bit to get through our day to day? The biggest laughs you get at a comedy show, are when an unspoken truth is spoken, and everyone laughs in recognition.
The secret is out now, the stand-up in all her fearlessness just said it, and we can no longer deny the truth.
Denise Scott has always been honest and fearless as a comedian, and returning to the stage after more than a decade away, she was even more so. Not as an edge lord but as a truth teller, albeit given a little edge, because now she is 71 years old and a cancer survivor. She kicked off her show with a regaling of how she almost had the kind of accident in public that nobody at any age wants to have, merely hours before stepping out in front of us. She did not stop there, with each latecomer shuffling to their seats in the dark she mentioned her close call, just so they knew that had happened. Who should be embarrassed in that circumstance, the person who had the accident or the person arriving late? The latecomers, of course.
There was a real energy in the air at the beginning of the show – Denise did some crowd work proving not only quick-witted but razor-sharp in her recall. The comedy gold she spun from these interactions she returned to throughout, and possibly provided the biggest laughs of the night. At times, Denise would make a point with unapologetic conviction and the crowd would cheer and clap.
Yet as the show entered the second half things shifted a little. Seamlessly, Denise had built a familiar energy in the air, we were no longer waiting for a comedian to make us laugh but listening intently to the anecdotes of someone close to us. Yes, she was funny, but now she was talking about things very specific that could be unfamiliar to an audience member and yet, we leaned in. The legend has been part of our lives for decades now, and part of her appeal is how she reminds us of a beloved aunt, or sister, or mother, or grandmother, around the dinner table holding court.
Denise has fought cancer; she talked about how hard the treatment was and how her medication still affected her. When she danced on to the stage she placed down a piece of paper on a nearby stool, a few minutes in she referred to it and explained it was her notes to keep her on track. There was a moment in the middle of the second half when she turned to look at her notes and, locking in with the sonar of a veteran stand-up, she registered something. She said, with a slight tilt of the head to us, “It is annoying to do this, it must be annoying for you.” and then, she was off to the next punchline in a microsecond.
Honesty gets you far, being beloved gets you further, making people laugh gets you the rest of the way, and no one goes further than Denise Scott.
