Lord Carrett - Comedy Knight Headliner 1

Lord Carrett’s comedy is like an iceberg. There’s a lot that doesn't immediately meet the eye, both in the jokes themselves, and the way he puts them together.

He's a ‘recovery artist." Lord elaborates: "There are a whole lot of jokes that don’t have a set place in my act… they ‘float’—they're insults to the audience, or jokes about my own discomfort, or the situation I find myself in, and I fall back on them when a joke doesn’t get a response.”

The result is a little like watching a high-wire act nearly fall, and it holds the audience's rapt attention--it’s one reason people come to see him again and again. “It creates tension when a joke fails, and I use that tension to springboard onto an even bigger laugh with the ‘recovery’ line. It frees me up to work on new material, and to improvise, during every set.

"My detractors say I should lose the jokes that don't work... but no one can predict when a joke is going to fall flat. If a waitress drops a tray of drinks, or someone heckles, the best joke is going to fail. I prefer to have a 'Plan B' and audiences like the cat-and-mouse quality, because they never get the same show twice.”

One of Lord’s biggest influences, Johnny Carson, was famous for the same ability. Lord maintains: “Anyone my age that says they weren't influenced by Carson is lying.” His other influences include radio comedians Groucho Marx, and W.C. Fields, which seems fitting, because radio is where most people know Carrett from.

Lord’s managed the rare feat of headlining theaters without a sitcom or major television exposure. While he's appeared on television ranging from Showtime to"A Dating Story," radio is where he's made his reputation. His ability to work within that medium's verbal confines without sacrificing any of the impact led The Baltimore Sun to describe him as: "A cross between Sid Caesar and Sid Vicious.