If You Didn't Want Me Then

Beth Stelling spent her childhood in Dayton, Ohio, trying to flirt with her teenage babysitter, Tim. Decades later, she is back in her hometown, performing for an audience that includes Tim himself, whose sudden laugh from the crowd earns a literal onscreen subtitle. That level of hyper-local, slightly awkward history anchors a set about how the past is always trailing just a few steps behind us.

Filmed at the Victoria Theatre in Dayton and released on Netflix in October 2023, the hour finds Stelling at a high point in her career following her 2020 special, Girl Daddy. Her delivery is dry and methodical, marked by the patience of a comic who knows exactly how long she can hold a silence before the crowd gives in. She fills the stage with highly specific autobiographical dispatches, recounting her dad’s bizarre attempts to command a backyard raccoon army, her decision to age naturally in Los Angeles to serve as a cosmetic surgery control group, and the exhausting logistics of buying camping gear with a fake husband just to feel safe outdoors.