Sommore: Queen Chandelier ~ The Jester’s Privilege
Sommore has the type of career that would make one both be inspired and discouraged to become a stand-up.
She’s cultivated a career of over thirty years of practically solely comedy specials and TV appearances, becoming a mainstay in multiple legendary names in comedy like Def Jam and the Apollo. She rarely has had to work outside the realm of comedy, and not only does she have six specials under her belt, but she has been the main producer of every single one. Even with all of that, however, I bet for most people reading this, you did not know Sommore had a stand-up special on Netflix. My Netflix queue is almost 100% stand-up comedians, and her special wasn’t in my recommendations, it wasn’t in the “New to Netflix” tab, I had to do the unthinkable: use the search bar.
When I finally found it, I was surprised it took me so long to find this comedian. Compared to what Netflix has prominently promoted over the past few years, Sommore is the type of comic you want people to know is on your platform. She’s not divisive in her jokes and rhetoric, appealing to a large audience, and most importantly, she’s fucking good. This is the reason I started reviewing stand-up in the first place: if you pay attention, you never know what might fall through the cracks.
Sommore broke every expectation I had going into “Queen Chandelier”. I’ve said it before, any comic pushing 55 to 60 usually isn’t my cup of tea. The jokes are out-of-touch, the performance is off-putting, whatever the case, it usually ain’t for me. Sommore is the exception of exceptions here. Her material, mainly revolving around the most played-out subject lately (COVID-19), had every chance to be lazy and uninspired, but instead was fresher than most jokes I heard all of last year. Every section of her show was a showcase of not just intelligence, but wisdom in the comedy game, and only someone with the title of “Queen of Comedy,” could understand the difference (or if you’re trying to buy your uncle a leg, but that’s another story).
Don’t let me downplay her stage presence either, both parts were equally strong. Her material works on a number of levels, but add in her confident, honest, frankly earnest personality into the mix, and it allows the stories and observations to shine that much more. She gives off the vibe that she’s got your back no matter what, but will not mince words if you’re being a dickhead. This amount of bluntness but down-to-earth nature allows her to navigate hard topics like red-pill poster boy Kevin Samuels. Even when I disagreed with her stances, it always felt measured and even-handed.
It’s a little longer than most specials, so it lost a bit of steam near the end, but that was my main gripe of the whole show. It had a lot of jokes to grab my attention, and I am fully open to watching again for witty moments I may have missed. All I can say is this: Netflix, do better. Showcase talent, not just names. And you better hope they don’t actually take Sommore’s suggestion for Uber Beats, because if I almost miss out on another special like this, I might have to use it on everybody at Netflix HQ.
8/10
