PYGMALION welcomed Josh Johnson to Champaign-Urbana Friday evening, where he delivered an hour-long set to a packed crowd at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.
Johnson is a 35-year-old stand-up comedian who began working on The Daily Show in 2017 as a staff writer. Now, he is a correspondent for The Daily Show and has a podcast titled “The Josh Johnson Show.”
PYGMALION, founded in 2005, has featured musicians, authors and drag queens throughout the past two decades, highlighting an array of artists to the local community.
This year, fellow Black comedian Hannibal Buress joined Johnson on the lineup as the second major comedy act for the weekend and will perform at KCPA on Saturday.
“I think it’s a big look,” C-U resident Myles Valentine said about the performers. “It’s dope. PYGMALION always snags some pretty good artists … We always clutch up one good Black comedian, which is awesome. It’s cool. I think it’s a big one.”
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The show was set to start at 7:30 p.m., but the line of people waiting to get into Foellinger Great Hall spilled outside of KCPA, and clusters of people still snaked around the lobby as the start time grew nearer.
Danielle Murchison, C-U resident, described the line as “interesting,” but remained grateful for getting to see his stand-up live.
Murchison has been a fan of Johnson’s comedy for three years after discovering his work on YouTube, and received tickets to his show as a birthday gift.
“Randomly, his video came up, and I was like, ‘Who is this kid?’” Murchison said. “Then I watched him on The Daily Show, and I started seeing more and more content of him … He’s always been hilarious. He’s my type of humor.”
Fifty minutes after the designated start time, the line finally dwindled as people made their way into the packed theater. At 8:20 p.m., the lights in Foellinger Great Hall dimmed, and Johnson’s opener, Logan Nielson, took the stage to loud cheers.
Nielsen performed a quick 20-minute set, bouncing around from topics about his girlfriend, abortion and the state of the United States’ democracy before introducing Johnson to the crowd.
Johnson entered the stage to drawn-out shouts and applause, immediately beginning his set by sharing that he recently fell down a rabbit hole of watching animal release videos.
Commanding the crowd with his captivating stage presence, he talked about families who picked up injured animals from the wild and nurtured them back to health before releasing them.
“Look, I’m just saying,” Johnson said before momentarily pausing. “This is just me, but out of all the videos I’ve watched, and I’ve watched a lot, I’ve seen many. I just think, I personally have yet to see a Black family…”
Uproarious laughter from the audience immediately interrupted his sentence; some people even clapped and nodded their heads in agreement.
The story about animal release videos eventually pivoted into odd Ivy League sports, getting chased by a turtle and getting drunk off virgin margaritas.
Johnson spent a large amount of time on each seemingly random story, heavily fleshing out each concept and describing each scene in great detail. For each narrative, he added his own personal anecdotes with multiple punchlines that elicited laughter from the audience.
Toward the end of the evening, the set took a more serious turn, as Johnson began talking about Jimmy Kimmel’s recent removal from ABC and free speech in the country’s current state, something that some audience members were looking forward to.
C-U resident, Christian Alexander, is a recent fan of Johnson’s and came to the show hoping that his set would include some more controversial subjects.
“I’m definitely interested in seeing if … he’s going to mention Charlie Kirk, freedom of speech or just what’s going on recently,” Alexander said.
The second Johnson said Jimmy Kimmel’s name, the crowd broke into immediate applause, and for the final 15 minutes of his set, it was made clear that Johnson’s show was supposed to serve as something greater than just stand-up.
His voice conveyed his seriousness and urgency, and although he threw in a few quick jokes throughout this portion of his set, Johnson’s overall tone was grave.
“You see something like what happened to Jimmy Kimmel happen, and then you see people ask, ‘Is this really happening?’” Johnson said. “Because it was never supposed to be able to happen here, and it’s because of a lie we all told ourselves … This is happening. There’s no way around it … This is not just crazy, this is unacceptable. It cannot happen here.”
Johnson’s seemingly random stories about his turtle interaction and sickness from virgin margaritas somehow worked their way into the concluding section of his set, adding a more lighthearted element and providing a context for the show as a whole.
“I’m not a tough guy,” Johnson said. “I’m not. I almost died from virgin margaritas, and I screamed and I ran from a turtle. But I can’t run from this, and neither can you.”
