Jeff Ross: Take a Banana For the Ride

Jeff Ross: Take a Banana For the Ride is in performances at the Nederlander Theatre through September 28.

By Andrew Warren

Jeff Ross is not a typical choice for Broadway. He is a stand-up comedian known as the Roastmaster General, a title he earned after more than twenty years of celebrity roasts. He is not a storyteller, and his comedy has always relied on raunchy, offensive one-liners rather than long, crafted routines. His newest project, Take a Banana for the Ride, is a departure from that style. It is a one-man show about the many tragedies in his life, from childhood through today. It is a side of him his fans have not seen before. The question is whether an insult comic can really make it on Broadway.

The stage is simple, with a couch, an end table holding bananas, and two musicians, a pianist and a violinist. Jeff Ross enters in a bright yellow suit and begins with stand-up, talking about his career and his years as the Roastmaster, before moving into his origin story. He recalls his family, his grandmother’s catering business, and her death, the first of many losses that shape the show. His mother died when he was a teenager, his father when he was nineteen, and his grandfather not long after, and each story is framed around grief and how he and his family carried on. At moments when he wants to be serious, the musicians play somber music and Ross adopts a more solemn tone. Along the way he breaks into musical numbers, reads old family letters, and interacts with the audience. The jokes remain, often sharp and off-color, but he always balances them with reflection, trying to distinguish this performance from a traditional comedy special. Ultimately, the show is about passing on lessons, offering a little wisdom, and  showing how to keep moving forward after loss.

Is the show funny? Sometimes, but not consistently. The jokes mostly appeal to the lowest common denominator and often feel simple and repetitive. None of them are elaborate or particularly clever, and Ross has not really leveled up his writing for Broadway. If you do not enjoy his signature roast-style humor, the show is unlikely to win you over. He also leans too heavily on recurring bits, like the line about his German shepherd being an actual Nazi, which he uses more than a dozen times until it loses any impact.

Thematically, the show feels shallow. Ross relies almost entirely on death to win the audience’s emotional investment, and while grief is a universal experience, this approach makes the second half of the show increasingly absurd. Because he can only write dramatic or sad monologues around death, he ends up centering the final twenty-five minutes on his dog’s passing. Transitioning from parents’ deaths to a canine death feels forced and diminishes the emotional weight he tries to create. The structure and tone feel manufactured, as if Ross is stacking one tragedy after another in hopes of proving his story has weight.

This show doesn’t belong on Broadway. The mark of a strong storyteller is that when you look back on the performance, you remember the story itself as if it were a movie, with scenes and locations coming alive in your mind. When I think back on Jeff’s show, I only remember Jeff. He is a skilled comedian, but he makes little effort to inhabit or act out the stories he tells, so the material never takes shape beyond his presence on stage. It also feels misplaced for Ross to attempt a sweeping autobiographical show at this point in his career. He is not Seinfeld or Eddie Murphy, comedians whose cultural influence and long legacies make reflective projects feel earned. Ross is best known for showing up at roasts, and while he has built a reputation in that niche, he has not established himself as a defining comedic voice. The result is a show that carries a sense of unearned self-indulgence.

Watching Take a Banana for the Ride is a little like reading a college application essay padded with every sad story the applicant can remember. Students sometimes think that the more tragedies they list, the more impressive or serious they will appear, but in the process they lose their own voice. Instead of letting their perspective shine through, they bury themselves under a catalogue of misfortune. Ross falls into the same trap. There are flashes of personality, and even some charm, but the attempt at gravitas feels strained and unconvincing. He mistakes the quantity of grief for depth, and the result is a performance that feels manufactured rather than lived-in. Ross may be the Roastmaster General, but Broadway demands a different kind of authority, and he does not have it.

Find tickets and more information HERE.