Ray Romano

He walks to the mic looking slightly uncomfortable in his own clothes. He paces the floor, holds the stand close, and speaks in a familiar nasal drawl, pitching his voice up when he hits a moment of exasperation. He relies on strict setup-and-punchline rhythms, but he delivers the material like an exhausted man complaining to a neighbor. He will start a story about a minor domestic dispute and then carefully lay out the evidence for why he is entirely at fault.

Romano spent nine years anchoring a massive network sitcom and now takes on dramatic film roles, but he still drops into small New York clubs to run sets. He does not need the stage time. He shows up because he genuinely likes the puzzle of a joke. When he filmed Right Here, Around the Corner, he shot it at the Comedy Cellar and the Village Underground, keeping the ceilings low and the room tight.

He talks mostly about his wife, his grown children, and his physical decline. He takes premises that could easily slip into hacky territory, but he steers clear by stripping away his own dignity. When he brings up his sex life, the punchline is usually just a description of him trying to catch his breath. He will let the crowd laugh at a humiliating admission while he just stands there, blinking, waiting for them to finish so he can explain how things actually got worse.