By MANUEL MENDOZA

Almost 40 now, Ms. Cho was less strident, less out to shock for the sake of it, and more outwardly happy than in the past….She was most at home when engaging the body, especially from the angle of identity politics…Ms. Cho seemed more comfortable in her skin than ever.”

GRAND PRAIRIE – For Margaret Cho, the body is political. She never met an orifice she wasn’t eager to explore for social meaning.

On her first tour in three years, comedian Margaret Cho entertained the Nokia Theatre crowd with her frank observations.

On her first tour in three years, called Beautiful, the foulmouthed comedian brought her frank observations to Nokia Theatre on Sunday night. Almost 40 now, Ms. Cho was less strident, less out to shock for the sake of it, and more outwardly happy than in the past.
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By Todd Camp

“Some of the biggest laughs were unprintably raunchy (but none the less hysterical).”

GRAND PRAIRIE — During her packed show Sunday night at Nokia Theatre, Margaret Cho proved that even preaching to the choir can produce beautiful music.

Cho came through town on her Beautiful tour and addressed everything from body issues to government sex scandals to all sorts of subjects we can’t repeat in a family newspaper.
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By Scott Kearnan

“The sex-capade, and a subsequent tangent on pop culture divas…went over well with the packed audience, who was hooting and hollering its collective approval. Her political jabs, peppered throughout the show, were among her best and the show one of her consistently funniest.”

There’s a certain formula that comes with a Margaret Cho comedy show: combine one part sex talk, a teaspoon of potty humor, a hefty dollop of politically incorrect leftist opining, and a few shout-outs to the LGBT community (Cho is married to a man but identifies as “queer”). The result? A seemingly sold-out show at The Orpheum on April 5, a rabid fan base that hangs on her every word, and – if history is any indicator – a DVD special that will allow you to freeze frame any number of Cho’s uproariously contorted facial expressions (now in HD!) for maximum hilarity.

It’s a solid formula; in danger of growing old, true. But it works every time. “Beautiful” is no exception, a solid return to form after Cho’s last national tour of original material, 2004’s “State of Emergency.” That outing found Cho in fiercely political territory, and there’s no doubt that the comedienne is often at her best when she’s fired up over one hot topic or another. But the election-year immediacy of “Emergency” channeled Cho’s (admittedly righteous) indignation over the State of the Union into a rancorous, shrewish show that abandoned comedy for campaigning. Infrequently funny, it often threatened to turn her usually saucy soapbox into a bitter bed of nails.
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By Sean Davidson

“…her latest tour, Beautiful, which on April 4 saw Cho return to the more honest and personal material that marked her earlier years….Cho seems to have re-embraced the best of what made her big in the first place.”

The last time Margaret Cho made the rounds her act didn’t look so good and seemed to be trending downward. The howlingly raw material of her debut I’m The One That I Want and follow-up Notorious C.H.O. had — by the time of Revolution and in particular 2005’s Assassin — given way to a good deal of pandering non-comedy and speechifying that didn’t so much tell jokes as it told her adoring fans what they wanted to hear.

If that sounds like a belated swipe, well, let’s blame it on the lingering awfulness of Assassin and move on to the notable improvements of her latest tour, Beautiful, which on April 4 saw Cho return to the more honest and personal material that marked her earlier years.
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By Katie Johnston Chase

“Cho laid her dirty comedy on thick at the Orpheum Saturday night, and the near-capacity crowd ate it up. Cho was larger than life on the video screen above her – all the better to see her masterful facial expressions. She can contort her eyes, her mouth, even her nose into the funniest positions, whether she’s imitating her mother imitating Julia Child or reenacting her horrified self…”

PHOTO CAPTION: The comedian was a master of facial expression at the Orpheum. (justine hunt/globe staff)

Margaret Cho is an interesting mix of empowering friend and raunchy sex fiend. Her current tour is called “Beautiful,” as in “We’re all beautiful,” an uplifting message but not an inherently funny one, which is why she sandwiches her short bits about loving yourself between long streams of genitalia jokes.
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By Michael Lyle

Margaret Cho is beautiful.

At least that is what she told the audience, who welcomed her with a standing ovation at the Pearl inside the Palms on March 29.

Of course, it wasn’t her beauty or lessons of being beautiful that captured the audience’s attention of a nearly sold-out theater. It was her comical anecdotes on political issues such as Iraq, sex scandals, prostitution and immigration that induced the entire laugh-filled evening.

For example, Cho had a simple solution for ending the war in Iraq.
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By Malinda Lo

“In a way, Beautiful is a return to I’m the One That I Want, the hit 1999 tour that marked her comeback from the failure of her sitcom, All-American Girl…..She made me uncomfortable, but she also got my attention. That’s why Margaret Cho is so necessary. The sharpest comedy shows you the boundaries of your own tolerance, and pushes them.”

Last Saturday night onstage at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, queer comedian Margaret Cho — now on tour with her new show, Beautiful — recalled going on a radio show where the host asked her: “What if you woke up tomorrow and you were beautiful? What if you woke up and you were blond, had blue eyes, were 5-foot-11, weighed 100 pounds, and you were beautiful? What would you do?”
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