By: Aaron Calvin

Entertainment Editor

With the presidential debate at Hofstra only a week from their performance, it was very apt that HaHa Hofstra held “Politically INcorrect,” a night of politically themed performances. Though they were confined to one theme, a majority of the comedians inspired a lot of laughter from the audience.
A montage of awkward Mitt Romney pictures kicked off the show. This was followed by a cringe-inspiring video done by the MC of evening. Luckily, she was quickly followed by the first comedian of the evening, John Thomas.
Full disclosure: Thomas writes for us fairly regularly here at the A&E. But his stand-up was consistently funny, and I’ll bet my journalistic integrity on that. He began by calling up an assistant to stand at a computer throughout the set to be consistently checking whether Romney had said the n-word yet. Thomas made fun of each candidate, every joke delivered in a casual monotone that made for an effective delivery.
Next came Dan Johnson with a surprise guest: the chair from Clint Eastwood’s speech at the Republican National Convention. Johnson’s delivery was a little stumbling at first, but as soon as a disembodied voice belonging to the chair appeared, the act became much more relaxed and skit hit its mark.
Peter Waters’ stand-up followed. Waters made an excellent bit through the double-sided means of his awkward stage presence juxtaposed with his overblown idea of what each party stand of on different issues. The laughter he brought forth proves that simplicity in good form can go a long way.
Max Lehman was, unfortunately, the low point of the show. Assuming the role of a professor, he gave a faux lecture, Power Point and all, on the possible future that would’ve occurred had Rick Santorum stayed in the election and followed through on his promise to ban pornography. The trouble lay in the execution; the skit was stumbled through and just went on too long.
Fortunately, the show ended on a laugh when Riley Metcalfe took the stage. Unlike the Thomas or Waters, Metcalfe’s stand up was fairly straightforward. His jokes were riffs on conservative figures and issues from the point of view of a flummoxed liberal. He moved from topics like what it would be like to go to high school with Obama and Romney to exploiting the ridiculous scenarios that arise when people fight about politics on social media.
Though it had its low points, HaHa Hofstra’s “Politically INcorrect” left me laughing. If this kind of quality performance comes with every HaHa Hofstra event, I look forward to attending them in the future.