She’s had small roles in hipster thriller Search Party and the new Tarantino movie but
comedy is Berlant’s first love. Why? Because it’s ‘a place of terror’
To fellow comic Bo Burnham, she is the “most influential/imitated comedian of a generation … a millennial Lenny Bruce”. As anyone who saw her Edinburgh fringe debut last year will know, Kate Berlant is the real deal – a silly/clever impro-comic majoring in how identity and ego are performed in the too-much-information age. And yet here she is arriving in
London for a short standup run, to zero name recognition and minimal fanfare.
That may change: after roles in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in
Hollywood and 2018 hit Sorry to Bother You, she now has a TV sketch show in development with sidekick John Early. Telly connoisseurs will identify Early as a star of hipster comedy-thriller Search Party, in which Berlant also appeared. The duo have posted a series of hilarious videos online skewering – as Search Party did – the smart, shallow and self-absorbed millennial way of being. But their TV projects have yet to escape in-development gridlock, obliging Berlant’s genius to remain, for a little while longer, a secret shared by comedy lovers alone.