“One If By Land, Late If By T” is a funny show. It’s the perfect place to send tourists, out-of-town guests and anyone who thinks Bostonians are nothing but Sox-obsessed loudmouths with a mumbling mayor and an inability to use the letter R.
Though the two hours of mostly sketch comedy, created by Chicago’s Second City, are rife with stereotypical Boston humor written by people who’ve never lived here, they do get it right quite often.
The logistical impossibility of a Somerville-Back Bay romance is especially funny, as are three Southie women sitting in lawn chairs saving parking spaces for their husbands in April.
The troupe has several non-region-specific skits that get great laughs, but Dana Quercioli’s stand-up comedy debut of Emily Bronte (seriously) proves to be one of the funniest bits in the show.
A group spelling bee with an especially fine turn by Improv Asylum’s Kiley Fitzgerald is a huge crowd pleaser, as are Asylum mainstay Micah Sherman’s hilarious improv as a Berklee dropout and an indecipherable musical number as Mayor Menino.
The show is not perfect, though. The Scott Brown sketch misses the mark and a father using Boston landmarks to explain sex to his teenage daughter is dreadful.
The troupe’s use of Boston music and miniskits about everything from gay marriage to the Catholic Church to change scenes adds to the local flavor and fun of the evening. And of course, the mere mention of a meat raffle is itself wicked funny.
Improv Asylum
presents The Second City ‘One if By Land, Late if By T’
Through May 9
BCA Calderwood Pavillion
539 Tremont St., Boston
$45-$65, 617-933-8600
