What a view | Netflix stand-up comedy special Ronny Chieng: Speakeasy isn’t funny – be prepared for a rambling, repetitive, hour-long rant

United States-based Malaysian entertainer Ronny Chieng rambles for a full hour on Ronny Chieng: Speakeasy in a largely unfocused, unsubtle and unfunny routine

Meanwhile, American journalist Jake Adelstein’s memoir of his time on the Tokyo police beat is brought to life in crime drama Tokyo Vice on HBO Go

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If you’re tuning into Netflix stand-up special Ronny Chieng: Speakeasy, be prepared for a rambling, repetitive, hour-long rant.

Stephen McCarty

Published: 9:45am, 1 May 2022

Funny thing, comedy. Especially stand-up. Written and performed well, it can have you feebly repeating the jokes to your best chums until they unfriend you on social media. Done badly, it can have you staring at your shoes, squirming in embarrassment.

Ronny Chieng: Speakeasy, his second Netflix stand-up special, sees him doing anything but speaking easily or softly in a New York restaurant suggestive of a dodgy dive bar (until you glimpse the cabaret tables).

In a rambling, repetitive, hour-long rant that feels like a tour rehearsal released by mistake, the United States-based Malaysian entertainer and Singapore and Australia alumnus announces that, yes, people are stupid: he’s swiftly into pummelling the cause of anti-vaxxers who screamed for Covid-19 jabs, but now refuse them unless they are given obscure scientific evidence that they are safe.

Singapore provides context for a clichéd joke on the clichéd subject of chewing gum and caning. But in fairness, a story about women as vending machines does show some invention within a largely unfocused, unsubtle and unfunny routine so drab it made one question whether, according to memory, Chieng’s first Netflix outing, 2019’s Asian Comedian Destroys America! had actually been far sharper (it had).

Chieng drops a lazy, scarcely credible 84 F-bombs in Ronny Chieng: Speakeasy.

Eventually, the real subjects of his bile heave into view. Pandering to his audience on the topic of American comedy (“it’s fun, it’s easy”. Cue the whoops and hollers), he takes aim at online detractors for – shock! – expressing opinions and “mining for outrage” – precisely his own shtick.

Oh, the irony. “Who the f*** reviews comedy?” he asks rhetorically, perhaps fearing what’s coming.

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.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}What a view | Netflix stand-up comedy special Ronny Chieng: Speakeasy isn’t funny – be prepared for a rambling, repetitive, hour-long rant

What a view | Netflix stand-up comedy special Ronny Chieng: Speakeasy isn’t funny – be prepared for a rambling, repetitive, hour-long rant