THEATRE + COMEDY

Improv Comedy Showcase and Restaurant presents Doug Stanhope.

If you are unfamiliar with Doug's stand up comedy - think twice before you decide to join us. He will challenge your social, religious and political thinking in a very unashamed and forceful manner. Oh, and by the way, he will be wickedly funny while doing it. So if you decide to join us be ready for comedy that is completely original, graphic and uproariously funny. But don't come if you have a thin skin!

Doug Stanhope is a stand-up comic. Has been since 1990. His material ranges from true-life graphic perversion to volatile social criticism. Doug is vulgar, opinionated, brutally honest and shockingly uninhibited and is certainly not for everybody. He started his career in Las Vegas doing jack-off jokes for free drinks. Not much has changed, save for the mullet.

Doug has built a wide-ranging television resume of dubious achievement. He hosted The Man Show on Comedy Central as well as the ubiquitous pseudo-porn for the sexually crippled, "Girls Gone Wild", both solely and shamelessly for financial gain. He has appeared on "The Howard Stern Show", "Comedy Central Presents", "Premium Blend", NBC's "Late Friday", "Spy TV" BBC's "Floor Show Live" while on ecstasy and wrote, produced and starred in Fox's "Invasion of the Hidden Cameras" and has even popped up on "Fox News with Greta Van Sustern" and "The Jerry Springer Show". But none of it compares to seeing him live.

He’s appeared at major comedy festivals including the Montreal Just For Laughs, Aspen US Comedy Arts, Chicago Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, where he won the Strathmore Press Award in 2002. Also in 2002, he was named as one of the Top Ten Comics To Watch by both Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. He has released three CDs and three DVDs including the latest through Showtime, "No Refunds" in 2008.

"Ask anyone whose opinion matters, and they'll tell you Doug Stanhope is one of the top ten stand-ups in the world today.

Stanhope's confrontational stance comes from the rough, blistered underbelly of America's trailer parks; he's a feral, aggressive man full fuelled by primal urges to drink, fight and screw ­ and the corrosive material has all the venomous aggression you might expect from that background. But what underlines it, and makes it so untouchably good, is the passion and conviction with which he holds his intelligent beliefs, informed by sensibilities that might seem alien to such a no-nonsense, pig-headed persona. -Chortle UK

"Stanhope shocks you with the virulence of his lucidity; he shocks you into realising how transparent the confidence trick of western propaganda can be made to seem. What he has in abundance is the charm, don't-give-a-damn swagger and aggressive intelligence that make for important, exciting comedy." -Guardian, UK

"Some of the sharpest and most biting cultural commentary you'll see in a comedy club." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Austin Chronicle says, "Let me tell you something, friends. Doug Stanhope is one funny sumbitch. He's also one of the most twisted individuals I've ever met, but that's part of his charm. He's one of those comics that doesn't make shit up. He lives a mad, mad life and what he remembers he reports back to us. He's been known to bare his soul, and other things, right there on the stage. If you're easily offended, stay home this week. Watch Matlock or something. But if you like your comedy rough, raw, and rowdy, there's no one better than Doug Stanhope. Have I made myself clear?"

"Sharp, off color, and howlingly funny" - The San Francisco Chronicle

"Stanhope breaks down the walls of decency. He uses profanity, but nothing he says is meant to shock. Everything he says is designed to make the audience laugh. Stanhope has worked his way to become one of the best comics around" - The Reno Gazette Journal