Many comics speak their mind. Few are as brutally honest as Margaret Cho. The Korean-American quickly won over the full house by saying how glad she was to be bringing her Fresh Off The Bloat tour to England, “where Trump can’t get me”.
She was soon running through things she disliked about the US president, from his politics to his libido. Cho was similarly vocal regarding recent celebrity scandals, applauding the stars who had spoken up: “It takes a lot for me to say I like Gwyneth Paltrow.” Later she claimed that Woody Allen is a fan of her work. “I think he wants to adopt me,” she joked.
She was searingly frank as well as funny, revealing how she had been repeatedly raped as a child. The emphasis was on strength, not victimhood. By owning her experience she removed any shame. Unlike her sex life, which the bisexual comic discussed at length, drugs are things of the past.
Rehab last year has changed her. Where words once poured out, they now sound more considered. There were almost Pinteresque pauses, notably during a whispered rendition of Madonna’s Holiday.
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She recalled a spat with Tilda Swinton over casting white actors to play Asians, asked how Jimmy Savile pulled the wool over a nation’s eyes while wearing gold shorts, and went into intimate detail about her boyfriend. By the end, one truly knew Cho inside out. On the snowiest day of 2017 there was nothing slushy here.
