This Ain't Shakespeare With Special Guest Joel McHale

Brooks McBeth operates without pretense, setting expectations right at floor level with a title that guarantees high culture is nowhere on the schedule. He leans into bodily embarrassments, questionable lifestyle choices, and parenting ambitions that top out at raising an aggressively average boy named Adequate.

The show was taped at The Triple Door in Seattle, a hometown gig for a comic who got his start writing and performing on the local sketch series Almost Live!. By 2015, McBeth had relocated to Los Angeles, clocking time in television writers’ rooms for MADtv and touring as Joel McHale’s regular opener. McHale handles the stage introduction, giving his former sketch partner an affectionate send-off into the spotlight.

The second half centers on bad advice from his mother and the indignities of aging, with McBeth walking the audience through bathroom disasters and his own refusal to grow up.