Review: Lisa Lampanelli Is A Filthy, Dirty Whore

Lisa Lampanelli came to Albany on April 14th and performed at the Palace Theatre. I gave a call to A Work In Progress at the last minute and asked if he was interested in joining me. The place was nearly sold-out when we got to the box office, with the only two adjacent seats available in the far back of the balcony on the side. We decided to see about any single seat availability and we totally lucked out. We were in rows 7 and 8 and he was just one seat over from being directly in front of me. Seeing as how all tickets were the same price (just under $30), we scored!

If you are unfamiliar with Ms. Lampanelli, you may remember her as the most obnoxious comedian on the latest round of celebrity roasts on Comedy Central; from her appearances on the Howard Stern show; or in the Larry the Cable Guy movie.

In a nutshell, she has an incredibly insulting style of comedy. She hits on every racial, religious, and sexual stereotype during the show. If you are uncomfortable with racial epithets, anti-semitism, or homophobic slurs, this is not the show for you. She outdoes Don Imus in the first 20 seconds of the show! She does manage to be an equal opportunity offender. Her targets are chosen from the audience, so sensitive people should not get seats in the first five rows. Interestingly, she only mentions celebrities and politicians very briefly. It felt weird laughing at jokes about black people when the person sitting next to me was black. But I figured I laughed just as hard at the gay jokes.

I was only uncomfortable a couple of times, when she made jokes about cancer and AIDS. By that you can see there's no subject that is off limits.

She brought an opening comic with her, Ms Locke, who was quite funny and held the room...which was very big. And, at the Palace, you can bring beer and wine to your seat so the crowd was primed with alcohol. Only a few stupid drunks interrupted the set toward the end. Ms Locke was on stage for about 20 minutes; Ms Lampanelli for nearly two hours. I laughed hard for nearly the entire time so it was a great show for those that like her humor.

This clip is definitely NSFW and should not be viewed if you are easily, or not so easily, offended.