Josh Johnson: Symphony review – a masterful HBO special from a generational comedy talent | Tyson Wray

12 hours ago 9

In terms of both quality and quantity, Josh Johnson is producing standup at a more prolific rate than any other comedian on the globe. How often would you expect a professional comedian to release an hour-long filmed and edited set consisting of 100% brand new gear? Once a year? Every two years?

For Johnson, it’s every week. Every Tuesday since 2023, the American comic and rotating host-correspondent of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show has uploaded fully fledged, highly topical routines to his YouTube channel. Filmed from his own tours and club drop-ins, many have eclipsed the 5m view mark. To call him a disruptor of the conventional comedy career path would be a heavy understatement; Johnson is playing by his own rules and the comedy cognoscenti around the world are undoubtedly watching with a keen eye.

Symphony, his debut HBO special (following his 2023 Peacock hour Up Here Killing Myself), is a rare venture behind a paywall for Johnson, and it is a far more grandiose experience than his fans will be accustomed to. Gone are his signature hoodies and brick wall drop. Filmed at the Wiltern theater in Los Angeles, Johnson is dressed to the nines and accompanied by a decadent staging design thanks to HBO dollars.

The other difference is the content. For a production of this scale and the subsequent marketing timelines, it would be impossible for Johnson to tread his usual line of picking apart weekly headlines. There are none of his signature dissections of rap beefs, pop culture absurdities or whatever new hells the Trump administration is unleashing that day.

Instead, these have been replaced with more observational and apolitical material that Johnson has squirreled away over the past few years, covering everything from relationship dynamics to childhood and religion, all of which is delivered with candour, wit and introspection. While there’s no solid, overarching narrative, Johnson flirts with both tales of poignancy and deviations into accounts of the nonsensical and ridiculous nature of life.

He opens with a joke about a friendly but slow Uber driver who made him late for a flight – which, he says, goes to explain why women prefer dating jerks over nice guys – and tells a story about an uncle whose tendency to talk dirty to his food means he can no longer be taken to restaurants. It’s fine enough material to elicit chortles rather than guffaws, but it’s soon obvious that this opening fare is being deployed to warm the room before Johnson starts hitting more heavily.

Johnson has a remarkable ability to paint vivid visions with words, and his subtle physicality transforms amusing, if somewhat banal anecdotes into meticulously crafted joy and preposterousness. One story, about a team of adolescent karate students taking on their 45-year-old nemesis in a parking lot after class, sees a seemingly hobbled man reimagined as John Wick. A road rage incident that led to a man being literally shook is conveyed in such a way that the cringe and secondhand embarrassment will leave you grasping at your couch in discomfort.

While much of the hour is broken into vignettes, there is also a sprinkle of rapid detours, including the difference between being a “parent” and “having kids” (“There are people, no matter how long you’ve known them, you’ll turn to them one day: ‘You’ve got a daughter?!’”); teachers using John F Kennedy’s assassination to pull disruptive pupils into line; and asking whether Jesus only turned water into wine because he found his company boring.

Symphony culminates with a crescendo that’s too masterful to spoil here. Like any conductor worth their salt, when Johnson orchestrates his many stories together, varied in pitch and rhythm, the end result is far greater than the sum of its parts. For those who have been following Johnson’s body of work for the past decade, you’ll know that it’s not hyperbole to describe him as a generational comedian. For those who are new to his comedy, Symphony is a giant leap forward for a rapidly ascending star.