I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: February 2, 2026] Jim Gillespie / Hannah Trav

Despite all of the comedians we have seen, we’ve never been to a comedy club.  Technically when we went to City Winery, we had to buy food, but that’s not a comedy club.  Helium, on the other hand, is.  And it was our first experience with a two-drink minimum.  Helium changes it somewhat and has a two item minimum–so food or drinks (and I guess food is actually more expensive?).  So we did indeed by (watered down) drinks–even my ginger beer was watered down.  And we got some apps.  A surprisingly expensive night out for relatively cheap tickets.

So I assumed we’d see Rhys Nicholson and be home by like ten.  But instead, there was a host and an opener.  And I guess this is standard practice.

The host does a short set, then introduces the warm up and then comes back to introduce the headliner.

Our host was Jim Gillespie who implied that he is fairly new to Philly. He was very funny.  I enjoyed his jokes quite a lot and I was intrigued to see that he looked at his phone a bunch–notes, I assume.  I assume he is somewhat new to stand up because the jokes were great but the transitions weren’t very smooth.  But that’s what fine tuning is all about.  As I said the jokes were great and I laughed a lot.

Jim is a big guy and he made some good and (to me) original jokes about being big.  The first was about going thrifting and why are there no large clothes at thrift stores–he knows that fat old people are dying all the time–where are their clothes?  I also enjoyed the jokes about how he doesn’t want to die and become a fat ghost.  Who only haunts the kitchen.

Jim is also gay and made some funny jokes about gay dating.  Some were explicit, like getting a blow job on an inversion table.  And there was some audience banter (I was shocked at how close the front row is to the stage!).

My favorite jokes were about him taking shrooms before going to an escape room and saying the trick would be to see if they kicked in before he got out.  But they kicked in while he was still in the Uber and it was an escape room trying to get out the window of the car.

So when Jim was done, he introduced ne of his favorite local comedians.  And I thought, Rhys Nicholson is not local!  And then out came Hannah Trav.

Hannah is a Philly based comedian whose jokes were really quite funny.  She identifies as queer but has dated guy in the past and there were lots of funny jokes about that dichotomy.  I enjoyed that she said her parents were supportive of her dating life and when she said she was dating someone named Alex her mom said Is he…she…they employed?  That’s all she cared about.

Hannah is also a WWII buff.  She said she took edibles before going to the WWII Museum in New Orleans and loved it.  But she felt she may have brought the wrong vibe to the place as she was smiling the whole time.  She also wondered if she might find a meet cute there.  But the only people who go to that museum are veterans and bachelor parties (for second marriages).

She had a lengthy bit in which she asked the audience to guess what she does for a day job.  This was a great extended bit with lots of audience interaction. She had clearly written comebacks/punchlines for most suggestions (teacher, human resources) and was delightfull surprised by some of the more unusual suggestions (product tester).  She also reported some of her favorite answers–Uber Eats Driver.  Like she’s not responsible enough to drive humans around, but she could get your food from point A to B no problem.

She said she would tell us what her jo was and then never did!

She said that she wrote a joke about not wanting to go to West Philadelphia (too far) before she came out.  And then she learned that’s where all of the lesbians lived.

She had really good stage presence and made us laugh quite a lot.  It was a delightful warm up situation.