Student Pages was lucky enough to be at Ken Jeong’s first ever live show in Europe, right in the heart of London’s West End at the Adelphi Theatre. And what a treat it was.
A great mix of stand up, stories from both his medical and comedy career and a Q&A with the house lights right up. Fans of his legendary character, The Hangover’s “Mr. Chow”, were not disappointed as Ken arrived on stage to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ “Can’t Stop” and threw out some of Mr. Chow’s best moves. Every so often a line or two in Mr. Chow’s voice was dropped in. But this definitely wasn’t the Chow show, it was an honest and personal comedy set, that you’d usually only get to see in a small venue.
Ken’s film and TV work include The Hangover, Crazy Rich Asians, Community and Dr. Ken; and throughout the show, Ken owned his success over the past decade with dismissive confidence to great comedic effect. From on-set stories, to talking about how his Korean father was totally against him moving away from his stable career as a doctor to pursue comedy… until The Hangover blew up and suddenly he was like “great work son, now show me some of those dollars”.
Ken shared how it was his suggestion to appear out of the boot of the car in The Hangover completely naked, and how his wife had told him it would make the film the feel-good film of the summer for all the men who saw “it”. Ken shared great stories, told us how he had been given a break and how his life had changed in the past 12 years.
Having been working as, by his own admission, a not great doctor even while filing in his first big film “Knocked up”, we were treated to a medical Q&A, which the crowd used to ask a couple of medical questions and the rest just questions about Ken’s comedy career. Each time a question came in, the reply would start with a perfectly delivered, sarcastic “great medical question…”.
What an amazing night at the Adelphi, a both hilarious and personal performance that really resonated with the crowd.
A big shout out too to the warmup for Ken, London’s own Malaysian comic Nigel Ng (mrnigelng on Insta), who deserves a special shoutout for his hilarious set that really got the crowd going.
