I would be reviewing the next Coen Brothers movie, but, since I couldn’t find it, I figured I’d try something a little different. Oh, Hello On Broadway is a filmed live performance from, well… Broadway. While there is the advantage of having a live audience, there are plenty of challenges recorded productions like this face in the translation to screen. For example, when something goes wrong, there’s no going back. Especially in a production that is largely improvised, breaking character was inevitable. John Mulaney is sheer comedic force, because at almost every one of his lines, Nick Kroll was evidently holding laughter back. Largely, the jokes were funny, but I found that at the third act, things got a little too over the top.
The humour itself is incredibly smart. Even though there are two characters, they are established well at the beginning, and the way they bounce off one another is wonderful. Granted, these two characters were created by Mulaney and Kroll a long time ago, but in a lot of ways their ignorant nature works even better now. Oh, Hello takes the parody concept of film, and brings it to theatre very well. They have a play within a play format, where the two characters play, albeit the same character, but it allows for the obviously bad writing to be comedic after the base line characters are established. It sounds confusing, but it really isn’t. It’s mindless fun, but it comes from very smart comedy. A brilliant example of this is a segment of the show I wanted to bring up called “Too much tuna.” Each night, a different celebrity is brought onstage. In Netflix’s recording, the guest was Steve Martin. From this interview alone, it is clear the both Mulaney and Kroll are huge fans of all the comedy legends they bring on stage, allowing some fun chemistry being that the characters feel the exact opposite way.
All in all, Oh, Hello on Broadway is an incredibly smart comedic show, often juggling multiple comedic styles in a seamless fashion. However, being that it is a recorded live performance, there are problems with it, and the story does go over the top at times. Still, that doesn’t mean that Oh, Hello isn’t a remarkably fun watch. 8.9/10
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