Review: ALEX EDELMAN: JUST FOR US, Menier Chocolate Factory

A sign-language-speaking gorilla, white nationalists, and Robin Williams. What do they have in common? According to Alex Edelman's Just For Us, they're a lot more similar than one might think.

Just For Us, directed by Adam Brace, is a solo show playing at the Menier Chocolate Factory about Edelman's experience at a White Nationalist meeting in Queens, New York, that he attended after seeing a tweet if he was curious about his "whiteness." Indeed, throughout the show, Edelman questions his whiteness as an Ashkenazi Jew in a world where the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) are at the top, the whitest whites in Boston. He acknowledges his white privilege, but explains that there is a social ladder of whiteness, one that many have been attempting to climb for centuries.

For those unfamiliar with Alex Edelman, he is a comedian from Boston (you can hear the accent come out in a few moments of frustration) whose work mainly focuses on his life, particularly how being Jewish has shaped him over the years. To put it in his own words from his website, Edelman is a "Bostonian comedian. Jew. Sweetheart."

Edelman has made the rounds on American television, appearing on shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and Conan, but he is also well known in the UK comedy scene, with Just For Us having had its first workshop in London. Just For Us also ran in New York City last year to rave reviews, with comedians like Jerry Seinfeld, Richard Kind, Bo Burnham, and others praising the work.

Edelman has a frantic way of presenting himself as he paces across the stage and jumps between stories, throwing in anecdotes about his Olympian brother who represented Israel, Jewish day school, his first Christmas, and the East Coast's obsession with the "forbidden living room" (As a Pennsylvanian, I found myself strongly connecting to this part!). Throughout the show, I could not help but compare his comedic style to the web-making of a jumping spider, frantically weaving back and forth across the stage, tying everything together and creating a full masterpiece by the time he is finished. He links his storytelling style to his ADHD and his family's desperate attempts to find out "what was wrong with him" as a child, something many can relate to.

Edelman emphasises his desire to please, which goes so far as to him believing he has a chance with one of the White Nationalists, a woman named Chelsea. He describes their potential relationship as being perfect for a rom-com, the White Nationalist and the Jew who overcome barriers to be together. But even the other members of the meeting are seen as a challenge to Edelman, who is determined to make these people like him. Who doesn't want to impress everyone when you walk into a room, especially if you believe you have the moral high ground? He questions just how far his empathy, a core aspect of his life and religion, can go.

Ultimately, Edelman is a master at his craft who keeps you laughing, questioning, and empathising throughout the 90-minute show. Just For Us is the type of comedy show that will have you laughing until you snort, nodding along to statements in an eerily similar fashion to those at the White Nationalist meeting, and even questioning your own religious beliefs and exactly how far your empathy can go.

Just For Us is at the Menier Chocolate Factory until 26 February.

Photo Credit: Alastair Muir

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