Neil Hamburger

“America’s Funnyman” Neil Hamburger has worked every imaginable stage, from New York’s Madison Square Garden, to a show in pitch black darkness at the Edinburgh Fringe Fest. He has performed countless American, Australian, British, Irish, and Canadian tours, as well as in Norway, New Zealand, and the Bahamas, alongside acts ranging from Faith No More to Robin Williams. His TV credits include Tim and Eric AwesomeShow, Tom Green Live, and Jimmy Kimmel Live. His Live At Third Man album was produced by Jack White in Nashville; an earlier Hamburger effort was included in SPIN’s “40 Greatest Comedy Albums Of All Time.” The feature movie Entertainment, a dramatic look at Hamburger on- and off-stage co-starring John C. Reilly, Tye Sheridan, and Michael Cera, premiered at the Sundance and Locarno Film Festivals, and was released in 2015 to rave reviews. His recent Drag City album of lavishly-produced song, Still Dwelling, featured a memorable trio version of Jesus Christ Superstar’s “Everything’s Alright” with Neil singing alongside Mike Patton and Jack Black.

Press quotes:

“A phlegm-filled sack of putrid self-loathing, Neil Hamburger is the perfect satire of a slick, professional nightclub comedian. If you’ve ever suspected that behind the glossy veneer of fake bonhomie of those perma-smile acts lies an ugly, embittered, grotesque soul – well Hamburger is that demon made flesh. In some living Sisyphean hell, every night he dons his tuxedo, greases down his hair and ploughs through the vile set that disgusts even him, just so he can earn a three-piece chicken dinner. His contempt for his own pitiful existence is surpassed only for his contempt for the audience who compel him trudge through his despicable cavalcade of jokes. And my, these gags are certainly not for the faint of heart, as he plumbs the depths of depravity for the sake of a laugh.” – (Chortle (U.K.)

“Hamburger is the clapped-out husk of a decorous Southern gentleman, now coughing in painful hacks, suppurating filth through his tuxedo, and her to tip a slurry of abuse all over celebrity and modern life…a combination of malignance and desiccated vaudeville.” — (The Guardian)

“Neil Hamburger remains the greatest comedian I’ve seen the greater majority of an audience walk out on….No one was leaving their seats this evening though, as this peerless performer shocked and delighted in equal measure… On the road for 12 years with scarcely a day off, Hamburger is a condemned showbiz lag, doomed to perform his antagonistic anti-comedy to potential hostility forever.” — (The Scotsman)

“A brilliantly awful persona of an old-school, C-list funnyman—the kind with an ill-fitting tuxedo and an enormous, greasy combover—on a very bad night. Neil Hamburger toys with an audiences’ expectations (and patience), and indeed his act is a kind of rude commentary on stand-up comedy altogether.” – (New York Times)