HFCH Analysis

Holy Fuck Comedy Hour at The Annoyance is my favorite show in Chicago, I've written about it a number of times before, its at midnight on Fridays and its free.

Each week the cast, joined by a guest or two, put up in-development/experimental sketch ideas, some more structured than others. The result is a somewhat chaotic, frequently brilliant, always entertaining show where a collection of some of Chicago's most creative performers really go-for-broke. Yes, there is some failure- given the late hour, the typical lack of extensive preparation, the almost implicit requirement of absurd costuming, and a mercurial audience- how could there not be some. But failures at Holy Fuck can be almost as delightful as its successes. When an already insane (or even bad) idea goes off the rails there can be an almost rapturous quality to the depths, the volume, the commitment, of the failure.

From time to time I'll talk to some members of the cast after a show I enjoyed which they felt didn't go well. The audience wasn't responsive, this bit didn't get laughs, that bit didn't get a reaction. But the truth of the matter is the show was, usually, amazing. The confused, frequently drunken, random audience members that find their way into the free midnight show aren't your typical comedy audience. They may have no frame of reference for what they're seeing, a couple weeks ago there was a full Indian wedding party, last week a table with three generations of a family, people who don't typically see sketch comedy at all let alone something as bizarre and playful as Holy Fuck. There's also often a portion of the audience that is under the influence to various degrees. This is all to say the audience response isn't a good barometer for the quality of the content, especially with a show as capricious and chimerical as Holy Fuck Comedy Hour.

There's a lot of lips service paid to experimentation and support of failure in the Chicago comedy community. But there is no place where that philosophy is more in evidence than The Annoyance Fridays at midnight. It is a place where daring and courage are displayed without pretense, where expression is taken to dark and absurd extremes, and inspiration is ever present.