Randy Liedtke

Liedtke stands behind the microphone looking like an unassuming substitute teacher and speaks in an even, unhurried drawl. He sets up bits that sound like ordinary observational club fare, then steers them straight into deadpan trickery. On stage, he might answer his phone mid-set, play an awkward voicemail, or build a long story about proposing to his girlfriend just to reveal she does not exist. When an audience hesitates, he does not scramble or get louder. He lets the silence sit, then repeats the premise with the patient tone of someone explaining basic addition to an obstinate child.

He belongs to the stubborn wing of alternative comedy, the kind of comic who draws other comedians to the back of the room to see what he might pull. Rather than grinding out standard club headliner sets, he treats the stage like a place to see how long an audience will indulge an obvious lie.

The material runs on elaborate foolishness. He is the guy who once baked an iPhone out of cookie dough just to bait traffic cops into pulling him over, and that same instinct for practical jokes carries onto the stage. The risk is that certain routines lean so hard on misdirection they play more like stunts than standup. Yet throughout his album I’m On A Roll, he sells the driest nonsense simply by refusing to acknowledge that anyone in the room might disagree.