Review: John Oliver can fall back on stand-up

For an Englishman who lives in New York, John Oliver is remarkably conversant with the foibles of Philadelphia. And he got right to it during the second of his two shows at the Tower Theater on Friday night. "Thank you for being here," he greeted the audience, "and not out on the streets punching each other."

Oliver, host of HBO's Last Week Tonight, may not have grasped the meaning of this fair city's Mummers tradition, but he applauded its spirit, noting that while the rest of the country is groaning in bed on Jan. 1, Philadelphians are up early and getting hammered in silly costumes. "What a hard-drinking city," he marveled.

If you came to the show expecting political and social commentary based on Oliver's TV persona, you may have been surprised at what a colloquial tone he adopted in a lively set that included a surprising amount of sports references (including repeated mockery of Eagles' QB Mark Sanchez), observations about animals (leading to a nasty Bill Cosby analogy), and assorted accents.

Dressed casually in a flannel shirt and blue jeans, Oliver proved a natural and gifted stand-up artist, a sterling storyteller, and even a resourceful physical comedian, his facial contortions, in particular, reminiscent of a modern Stan Laurel.

What really stood out Friday was how in the moment the former Daily Show correspondent was. He engaged and reacted to the enthusiastic Tower audience, delivering not just punch lines, but counter-punch lines.

Oliver did more than five minutes on a man who got up from his seat in the first row, sashayed in front of the comedian, eyed him closely, and then walked slowly up the center aisle to the lobby. Comically shaken, Oliver called it the most "destabilizing" incident in his stand-up career. He proceeded to spontaneously make the regal stroller the cornerstone of his show.

Which took some doing because he was working with an abundance of material, from Evel Knievel to the rapid-fire T-shirt cannon at Sixers' games to an odd encounter with Michael Strahan, "ex-New York Giant and current black Regis."

Some of Oliver's bits were cerebral - like the irony of soggy Britain designating sunny Australia as its penal colony. A few were whimsical, including an extended bit on a library in Boise, Idaho.

All hit their marks quite smartly.

This nimble soft-shoe (no sex, please, he's British) indicated that if this TV thing doesn't work, Oliver has a viable career alternative.