Justin Golan
No Offence Tour
Don’t Tell Mama, NYC, March 23, 2025
Reviewed by Bart Greenberg
Justin Golan brought his act to Don’t Tell Mama, an act that probably plays better in a cruise-ship lounge (where he spends a good deal of time) at 11 o’clock at night. A cabaret space at 4 pm was simply a bad fit. This was definitely not your Aunt Ida’s cabaret. Running a full two hours, it wore out its welcome about halfway through. To be fair, much of his audience was made up of largely two parties, one of which was a group of 12 women who had come to NYC on a bus from Baltimore and had evidently treated it very much as a party bus well before they had even arrived. Yes, these were his people.
Truth to be told, Golan is a fine pianist and a decent singer, capable of impressive Beat Box vocalism and trumpet imitations. He was also impressively prepared for a show that had no set script and no set song list as he jumped from one parody to another. His reworked lyrics to everything from “Ring of Fire” (Johnny Cash) to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (Johnny Marks) to “I’m a Believer” (Neil Diamond) generally scanned and showed some wit and dexterity, but they were mostly about sexually inadequate men and sexually voracious women. What humor there was wore thin quickly.
Golan’s other shtick was to bring audience members up on stage; some of them volunteered while others were less willingly chosen by their friends or family. Once on stage, they answered a few questions and then heard an insulting verse or two of a song delivered by Golan to the amusement of those friends. It was another gimmick that quickly stopped being fun. It also led directly to the weirdest moment of the show when one of those ladies from Baltimore grew tired of dancing in the aisles and climbed up on stage of her own volition. Golan wisely kept going, and she lost interest after a few minutes. Still it was really distracting. After two hours the show ended, to the disappointment of some of his ardent fans and to the immense relief of others.
