COMEDY REVIEW : A Rambling Shandling Tests Grammy Jokes

After a three-year absence from performing stand-up in front of a live audience, it’s understandable that Garry Shandling’s rhythm would be a little off. But how does he explain his inability to finish a sentence or hold a thought, much less weave together a story, which is the comic’s general style?

Running roughshod as he did over stand-up comedy’s basic tenets (the same way he does on TV), Shandling’s personality, disarming smile, material and banter kept the show from turning into “A Night of Free Association With Garry Shandling.” But he came close.

For much of Thursday night’s show (the first of four at the Irvine Improv), Shandling, 44, would start a story, get sidetracked, chat with the crowd and then head back to his original point. Not a classic stand-up performance but, again, what can be reasonably expected of someone working from yellow legal pages on a stool?

The pro-Shandling crowd didn’t seem to mind if he was skirting his potential. It was as if the performer had invited about 300 of his closest friends for a night of trial and error.

Shandling, however, was not trying to polish or craft a stand-up show. He was merely there to work on new material for the Grammys, which he will host for the fourth time, on March 1 on CBS.

But when fans are paying $20 a head, it’s reasonable to expect something more than a tired-looking man thumbing through his notes. The 60-minute set included a few of Shandling’s old chestnuts, but lacked his famous broken-leg trip to Hawaii and the time he met then Vice President George Bush at the White House.

Instead, we heard how the music awards will be having a gun-for-Grammys swap.

Referring to some of the nominees who are in trouble with the law, he said: “I think it’s going to be a very big night.”

Thursday’s show started off as typical Shandling, king of the fret, except this time it wasn’t his hair he was fretting over. Apparently the applause died down too soon for the star of HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show.” If he hadn’t gotten to the stage as quickly as he did, he lamented, the room would’ve been silent by the time he walked up.

Then, he turned to a new mural of him on the wall and asked: “Geez. Do I look that troubled?”

Unfortunately, all the disjointed musings and tangential thinking caught up with Shandling. The ramblin’ man’s last 10 minutes fairly dribbled off the stage. He closed with a quick joke, thanked the audience and disappeared.