Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Natalie Palamides: NATE – A One Man Show’ On Netflix, Clowning Around Consent

Posing as Nate, Natalie Palamides is just an alpha male, standing in front of an audience, asking it to love him. And then asking for a whole lotta love. And then a whole lot more.

NATE – A ONE MAN SHOW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: You won’t recognize Palamides here from her Progressive TV commercials, where she plays one of “Flo’s” more cynical co-workers. She also voices Buttercup on the Cartoon Network’s Powerpuff Girls.
But her background is in clowning, and she has taken two shows to the Edinburgh Fringe, winning the Best Newcomer award in 2017. Philip Burgers directed Palamides in NATE for the stage and for the screen. Burgers himself is a noted clown, whose “Dr. Brown” earned a half-hour showcase on Netflix as part of The Characters series four years ago. If that wasn’t enough, Amy Poehler jumped onto the Palamides bandwagon to executive produce NATE for Netflix, too. What is NATE about, though?
Without giving too much away, it’s a show about a macho man whose machismo has been broken, and alternately teaches us and struggles to learn about sexual consent.
In fact, the hour opens with post-show audience reactions, which serve as warnings as much as they do testimonials. As one woman offers: “It broke my brain in a really good way.” Poehler then offers her two cents: “When I have seen the show in its entirety, people are genuinely confused and sometimes mad. And that’s art, baby!” I love that qualifier. When Poehler has watched the show in its entirety. Implying it makes more sense in just a clip? Roll the clip, then!

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: How many other theatrical clown shows have you seen onscreen? And how many of those have included nudity, both real and fake? Yeah, I didn’t think so. You might be able to imagine (or have seen) Poehler in her younger, pre-SNL days with the Upright Citizens Brigade getting involved in all sorts of onstage comedy chicanery, so at least in that sense, it adds up that Palamides would find a fan and benefactor in Poehler.
Memorable Jokes: The entire hour is memorable, right from the start.
As Nate, Palamides comes out roaring onscreen atop a mini-motorbike, accompanied by a metal tune (“Comin’ Up For Air”), sporting a big wig and mustache, hairy chest partially exposed by an open lumberjack top, with camo pants, boots, and a black eye under those shades. Nate drags a man by his ear out from the front row and motioned for him to lie on the floor for a stunt before the cheering and music has even stopped.
Nate’s first statement is a question.
What follows are a series of interactions with audience members, exploring who among them will allow Nate to touch them or otherwise get away with as much as Nate asks. “All you gotta do is ask,” Nate reasons, before leading the audience into a call-and-response which becomes a chant with segues off on a couple of humorous tangents. And then we realize all is not right in Nate’s world.

Nate antagonizes a couple seated up in the back rows. Nate gets into a wrestling match. Nate takes a shower. Nate reconnects with his best friend. Nate attends his art class, which leads to a surprising series of developments.
I’m being deliberately vague, because it’s all played for shock value. Did I mention there’s nudity, both real and fake, in this show? This is perhaps the one and only time a comedy special would deserve the “Sex and Skin” portion of Decider’s Stream It Or Skip It format.
Our Take: When you read the word “clown” earlier, how many of you imagined a circus clown, in white face with a red nose, a horn and cartoonishly large shoes?
What Palamides has done here, and does throughout her work, helps revolutionize and reintroduce clowning to a new generation of viewers. And her characterization of Nate, at once a symbol of toxic masculinity, and yet also a man who always asks for consent from the audience before pushing the proverbial envelope with each unsuspecting volunteer in the crowd, puts the entire #MeToo movement into a new perspective. Particularly when, in a climactic moment, Palamides plays both characters as victims and perpetrators alike.
Eventually Nate, or is it finally Palamides as herself, or is it both of them, asks us: “Is what I did wrong?”
Which part, though?!?
“Confusing, huh.”
Indeed.
Our Call: STREAM IT. NATE is a work of outrageous farce that cuts to the heart of heated debates about sex and gender, making us laugh and cringe, whether we’re prude or proud. I agree with the woman who said Palamides broke my brain, but in a good way.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch NATE: A One Man Show on Netflix