By Jesse Read & Shannen Johnston
Just For Laughs Festival brought comedy to Toronto in a big way this year, and it honestly reignited my love for live comedy. Over the course of 10 days, over 44,000 attendees had the opportunity to watch over 150 artists perform across 9 venues all across the city, now that’s a lot of laughs! Me and my fiancee used to go see live comedy at least once or twice a month, and loved introducing our friends and family to the shows, many who had never been to a comedy show but all who left having a great time. Life got busy and as prices of both tickets and drinks went up across the board, it’s something we stopped doing frequently, but this festival reminded me why live comedy is something we need to keep in our life, as there’s nothing else like it. Nothing is as contagious as laughter, and to spend a night in a room filled with other people who are sharing that with you is a magical thing, one that our cellphones and tvs could never replace. It’s a human connection that’s hard to find anywhere else, a room full of happy people who all got to experience a unique experience together, and smiled throughout the whole thing.
The first show we attended was Duel Citizens at The Second City. The show features an all Canadian cast and crew, throwing the audience in a non-stop flurry of skits, songs, satire and absurdly funny characters. One thing I really loved about the show is that it featured skits and ideas that I feel like you couldn’t see anywhere else. They joked about everything, from meeting a scorned french lover at a bar and discovering it’s Justin Trudeau’s ex, to getting butterflies for a new man while at the gravesite of your dead husband, to a witch hunt reimagined if the “hunters” were really just a bunch of simps, the show featured nonstop hilarious ideas that you’re definitely never going to see on TV. At one point they had the whole crowd singing along to their chorus “get horny with me” (something I definitely thought I’d see in a room as diverse in age as this one) in a musical number talking about how…well horny modern tv has come. And that’s a great thing about comedy, is that it’s for everyone. I can’t imagine another scenario where you could get a theatre full of people from all walks of life, and literally from the ages of 20 – 70 to sing something like that together, and to share in laughter at such a large range of topics, but that’s the thing, everybody there WANTS to have a great time, and this show created a space to do just that. I can’t recommend this show enough to anyone who gets the chance for one of their next performances.
The second show we attended was Matturday Wright Live at Comedy Bar on Bloor. This has always been one of my favourite spots to see comedy in the city and used to be our main go-to when we wanted to spend a night laughing. This was the first time two time Juno award losing (his description not mine) brought the show to Toronto, and it featured local comedians Tom Henry, Jackie Pirico and Brandon Ash-Mohammed. The show featured the four comedians individually, before they all came together for a q&a style improv set at the end, which is where I think they really won the audience over. Matt did a great job of putting a diverse line up together, Brandon kept the audience on their toes with repeated dance breaks, Tom played the “bad boy” who didn’t really care if you laughed (which we all certainly did) and Jackie brought non-stop energy to the stage, I didn’t know if she took many breaths during her set, which only became an issue when the crowd needed a second to breathe themselves after laughing so hard. When they all came together at the end, it showed why teamwork makes the dreamwork, these 4 diverse styles tied together perfectly to create a unique moment where you never knew what was coming next, but you knew it was going to be funny.
The final show we saw was Todd Barry at The Randolph theatre and this was a true gem. Todd Barry has performed on The Late Show Stephen Colbert, David Letterman, Conan and Late Night with Seth Meyers and has appeared in shows like Flight of the Concords, Chappelle’s Show, Spin City, Sex and the City and voiced shows like Bob’s Burgers and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and to see him at the Theatre was a great treat for Torontonians. Todd Barry is best known for his “bone-dry” and extremely sarcastic deadpan delivery, and if that’s the kind of comedy your into (which the room certainly was) this was the perfect show. His jokes were hilarious, you never knew quite where they were going until you got there, and his crowd work was amazing. I almost felt a little bad for some of the audience members, because the room was laughing so damn hard at some of them involved, but if you can’t laugh at yourself who can. One really hilarious part of the show is at the least expected moment he’d recall out past moments and conversations, tying them all in so perfectly as if they had planned out the conversations beforehand. His witty and sarcastic sense of humour left the crowd in stitches from start to end, I don’t think there was a single lull, proving why he’s had the success that he has.
BKonthescene 