His Majesty, the Baby is a comedy group with an almost obsessive interest in repetition and an almost obsessive aversion to repeating themselves.
I am writing this review to suggest that His Majesty, the Baby are entitled to your attention.
It is a cliché of comedy writing to say that a performer is capable of extending a joke until it is not funny anymore and then extending it further until it is funny again. It is a bloodless cliché because it lacks persuasive force; what evidence is there in the saying itself whether the comedian actually succeeds at this difficult maneuver, or merely attempts it? We are left to trust the author's judgment, a situation made problematic by the fact that people's senses of humor are widely various, problematicker by the fact that most people's senses of humor are, in widely various manners, wrong, and problematickest by the fact that most writers on comedy like comedy, which, having senses of humor that are wrong, they mostly do because they like comedians, and are inclined to say nothing if they have nothing nice to say, and therefore say something nice, thereby saying next to nothing.
His Majesty, the Baby are capable of extending a joke until it's not funny anymore and then extending it further until it is funnier than it was the first time.
(NB: I am either a former member or inactive member of HMtB. Not sure which. Therefore, I can present this review as close to objectively as possible, since I have extensive knowledge of what is objectively true about His Majesty, the Baby--for instance, that they are a group with an almost obsessive interest in repetition and an almost obsessive aversion to repeating themselves.)
(NBQ: Also, I like nothing and nobody.)
His Majesty, the Baby are capable of extending a joke until it's not funny anymore and then extending it further until it is funny again. This is because His Majesty, the Baby have an almost obsessive interest in repetition and an almost obsessive aversion to repeating themselves. This is because His Majesty, the Baby know that they are not entitled to your attention.
His Majesty, the Baby are repeatedly interested in obsession. Their characters do not know that they are not entitled to your attention and are driven by their determination to get it. If at first they don't succeed, they will try and try again. When at last they do succeed, they will try again again. They will not mess with the formula but they will mess up the formula. And then they will repeat the mess-ups as part of the formula. And then it will become clear that the characters do not understand the formula of their own success. And then it will become clear that, actually, you don't. Because there you are, your attention won not so much by their attempts to win your attention as by the increasingly ridiculous mess-ups in the attempts to win your attention, which, being the thing that most successfully wins your attention, are not mess-ups, but a successful formula for winning your attention.
It is my contention that this pretension to the retention of attention creates tension through extension--per intention.
His Majesty, the Baby are repeatedly and almost obsessively interested in the almost obsessive interest of their own characters in repetition. Because their characters believe that they are entitled to your attention, they will extend a joke until it's not funny anymore. Because His Majesty, the Baby know that they are not entitled to your attention, they will extend the joke further, not only until it's funny again--not only until it's funnier than it was the first time--but until all the times it wasn't funny become funny in retrospect.
You might say that His Majesty, the Baby are predictably unpredictable. This is absolutely correct and simultaneously so incorrect that I am frankly disappointed in you for even suggesting it. His Majesty, the Baby are unpredictably predictable. They will repeat almost everything at least once, but they will never repeat something the same way twice. This is not to say merely that they introduce variations into their repetition; this approach would quickly prove repetitive. In successive iterations of an act or joke or bit, His Majesty, the Baby will introduce variations on that they are introducing variations. Once variations on variations threaten to become repetitive, His Majesty, the Baby may even repeat the same thing twice the same way, which, being something that, as I just said, they never do, is hilarious.
You might say that this all sounds very self-absorbed. That is so incorrect that I am frankly disappointed in you for even suggesting it and simultaneously absolutely correct. His Majesty, the Baby is a comedy group with an almost obsessive interest in staging selfhood and an almost obsessive aversion to staging themselves. As of their latest show, which, given their almost obsessive aversion to repeating themselves, they are certain to never perform again, even if, given their almost obsessive interest in repetition, they should happen to once more go through all the motions of it, His Majesty, the Baby's performance was mediated through characters who are themselves performers. The successes and failures of their performances (defined as the degree to which they attract more attention than they are entitled to) not only stand for but, in fact, are themselves the successes and successes of His Majesty, the Baby. (There is no typo in the preceding sentence, unless I missed one by accident.) These performers are ridiculous in their self-absorption but vindicated by the audience's absorption in them. One is never sure, watching the show: is the joke between you and His Majesty, the Baby, at the characters' expense, or is it between His Majesty, the Baby and their own characters, at your expense?
Both of these interpretations are so correct that I am frankly disappointed in you for proposing them. The fact is, the joke is on His Majesty, the Baby: as long as there is an audience to perform to, and as long as their almost-obsessions compel them to perform, His Majesty, the Baby is doomed to repeatedly avoid repeating themselves, until such time as the joke isn't funny any more, and beyond, until it is again.