You might have noticed I’ve been expanding my horizons a bit recently.  Saturday night was no exception.  I was at The Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival at the Theatre Centre for a double bill of sketch comedy.  I don’t think I’ve seen sketch comedy live since university so I really didn’t know what to expect.

We were in the BMO Incubator which sounds like the sort of place one would clone investment bankers rather than see a show but whatever.  The first shock/surprise was the MC for the evening.  He was trying so hard to create “atmosphere”.  It was weirdly like a concert at the Zoomerplex only more so.  You know like when some hapless stage manager comes out and does a sort of Kermit impersonation… “Let’s hear it for Mozart’s Piano Sonata No.16 in C major, K.545.. YEAH”…CLAP, CLAP, CLAP.  It was like that but with dancing and more clapping.

The first act was Montreal’s Lou Laurence.  She’s six feet tall and has a guitar.  She’s (relatively) low key and tells stories and sings songs about the perils of internet era dating in contemporary Montreal.  Which, in the final analysis, are pretty much like the perils of any kind of dating anywhere ever.  It was mildly amusing but I found the hooting and hollering a bit weird given the mood of the show.

The hooting and hollering was more understandable for the second act; Cam Wylie.  This guy is manic, border line insane and very funny.  After warning us that he wasn’t going to be performing his famous Diarrhea Man routine he pulled off a series of one man sketches of inspired lunacy.  I think my two favourites were the one where his character Leakmore Darkstream, The Piss Wizard is rather unfortunately booked as the entertainment at a little girl’s birthday party with perhaps predictable consequences.  But on balance, and perhaps because I’ve had to watch countless pointless presentations by HR on the basic theme of stating the obvious I’d pick his McDonald’s sketch as my favourite.  Basically Grimace’s husband has to give a Powerpoint presentation (natch) on not sexualizing the company’s mascots.  The image of serried ranks of purple butt plugs with googly eyes (curiously reminiscent of John McRae’ poppies) is indelibly burnt onto my brain.

They hooted, they hollered and it was all in appallingly bad taste.  It was very funny and fun, in a way, but I really don’t enjoy the aggressive “pull the audience into it” aspect.  Would I go again?  Maybe, maybe not.

Sketchfest continues through next weekend with loads of shows and workshops etc to choose from.

Photo of Lou Laurence by Zoe Brisson Tsavoussis