4 out of 5 stars Anesti Danelis: Artificially Intelligent
Reviewed · Updated
Anesti is a very talented standup.
I'm a big fan of musical integration into comedy performances. People like Bo Burnham and Rachel Bloom immediately sprout to mind. Anesti's set is not quite like that, but it's comparable.
He deftly told some very funny jokes about growing up as the child of immigrants, and engaged in pre-planned arguments with pre-recorded segments that felt authentic in the moment. And then jumped on the guitar or sang to pre-recorded tracks some bitingly funny tunes.
If this was just a standard set doing that, it probably would have been a five star show.
Unfortunately the central conceit of the show I didn't really love. The show takes a stance on AI use that appears to be "anti", but the messaging gets a bit mixed and then parts of it do use LLM generation. I didn't find myself enthralled with that aspect, and I noticed a bit of a division in the crowd.
All credit to him though, there were a couple jokes that whiffed, and he seamlessly pivoted that section of the set to stuff that landed better. Incredible adaptability.
Overall, a very enjoyable show.