Ever since the Olympics ended, and the Daily Show and Colbert returned to CTV after being pushed to A-Channel temporarily, CTV has had an inexplicable inability to keep the shows in HD. Last night? Colbert was in standard definition again. A few nights ago, it was the Daily Show.
Daily Show host Jon Stewart will play at Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls Friday, June 19 and Saturday, June 20 at 9pm each night. Tickets go on sale this Saturday at noon via Ticketmaster and they cost – get ready – $99.25 and $151.75. Seriously.
Here’s a fun fact: Stewart does about 1 standup date a month, sometimes fewer. The last time he was in Toronto was in October of 2005 (and Buffalo about a year and a half ago). If you’re a fan, you might want to jump on this.
But is it worth the money? Considering I drove from Winnipeg to Minneapolis (750 miles, kids) to see him about 3 years ago, my opinion is obviously skewed. To be honest? While he is a great standup, he doesn’t write an awful lot for himself. If you’re familiar with his 1996 special (yes, that’s how far back we’re goin’) and regularly catch his talk show appearances, you can expect some repeat anecdotes. Also, don’t expect a bunch of political rants. He does just enough of that to appease those who are hungry for it, but most of of his material is more general than that. A good example, which I can almost guarantee he’ll do in the Falls:
In a related story, a Conan O’Brien live date for Edmonton was leaked online today. Nothing official has been released for his rumoured tour, but this is a good sign for those of us in the GTA.
The Toronto Sun reports that veteran Yuk’s comic Wayne Flemming has been sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to sexual assault — involving a teenager. If that sounds bad you should read the charges they dropped. Well go ahead, read it.
I met Wayne all of once, a dozen years ago, when he and Kenny Robinson were sent down to Welland for a Tuesday one-nighter at Niagara College (not sure what that room is like now, but it was hell back then). He seemed like a great guy, but being the bff of Jim Carrey, he was a kept man if anything went haywire (and it soon would). I suspect he was very aware of this.
He mostly fell off the Canadian comedy radar after his post-brain aneurysm comeback, but… well, at least he was meeting people, right?
Incidentally, in true Sun style, they manage to pull at least one fact out of nowhere: Flemming suffered his aneurysm in 2000, not 1995 as they report. Don’t go changin’, Sun Media.
We’re about 9 months away from the next edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, and the TIFF folks have already screwed one thing up.
Louis CK, who starred in the ‘09 TIFF-premiered film The Invention of Lying, has been shopping around his new concert film Hilarious to various film festivals.
Which festival loved it? A little event called Sundance. Which festival outright dismissed the submission? Yep, that’d be ours.
Reports EW:
He didn’t get as friendly a reception when he submitted the film to the Toronto Film Festival: “The guy wrote back something like, ‘I prefer comedians like David Cross.’ It’s like, ‘Hmm, if he’s not wearing horn-rimmed glasses, I’m not into it.’”
Smooth move, TIFF.
CK was most recently in Toronto for his 3 sold out shows at the Winter Garden last fall, but was unavailable to be in town alongside Lying costars Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner at their TIFF premiere. Maybe facetime around the Four Seasons would’ve prevented such a boneheaded dismissal.
Since he likely won’t be back here anytime soon, be reminded that Lucky Louie starts airing on the Comedy Network this Wednesday. The TIFF curators might benefit from tuning in.
Some pretty sweet comedy shows are on the horizon this spring in the GTA, including some visits from our friends south of the border. The highlights of the something-for-everyone lineup includes:
Joe Rogan – March 6, Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Unfairly known best for his Fear Factor hosting duties, Rogan is a stellar standup, appeasing purists with his famous smackdown of Carlos Mencia. Tickets
Craig Ferguson – April 23, Massey Hall
Cheeky monkeys rejoice! Craig’s long-awaited return to Toronto is, ironically, a 7pm show. If you’re not happy with the tickets you pull, I strongly suggest waiting around to see what happens around, say, 9:30 that night. No promises, just suspicion. Tickets
Doug Stanhope – April 30, Annex Wreck Room
Sure to have some crossover with Rogan’s audience, Stanhope remains the one comic to make me laugh at an abortion joke in a way that didn’t make me feel guilty afterwards. Tickets
Marc Maron – May 27-30, Yuk Yuks
The 3 comedy nerds who didn’t already know about this just came in their pants. Tickets not yet available. Venue site
Louis CK at the Winter Garden Theatre, Oct/09. Photo by Sharilyn Johnson
Oh hells yes. Lucky Louie, the sadly-short-lived Louis CK series (that previously aired on the Movie Network or Movie Central or one of those ’spensive stations) will be airing on the much more accessible Comedy Network starting March 3 at 10pm.
CTV’s news release says it will air the show “uncensored and uncut”. At 10pm. If you’ve actually seen this show, that should raise your eyebrow a bit. Should be fantastic.
But what CTV-owned channels giveth, CTV-owned channels taketh away. On Saturday nights for the past months, A-Channel stations were dressing up in their sister Comedy Network’s clothing and having some fun in the middle of the night. In one solid block, we got the previous week’s Daily Shows and Colbert Reports, along with episodes of Lewis Black’s Root of All Evil and Strangers With Candy. This delicious chunk of slightly-aged comedy goodness seems to have disappeared — either because their placement was just to burn off the number of airing occasions they still had the rights to, or it’s a temporary shift for the Olympics. Stay tuned.
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Yes, the Games start Friday. Hopefully everyone is ready to be swept away by the Olympic spirit and come together courtesy of the one thing that bonds us as a nation: our hatred for that CTV Olympic themesong. (Am I the only one who thought that girl was a member of the Colts on Sunday night?)
CTV “believes” that we’ll all miss our dose of Daily Show and Colbert Report on a nightly basis, which is why they’re shoving both shows over to A-Channel for two weeks (Comedy Network airings at 11pm will remain the same). Ironically, that means Canada will not have access to the HD versions of Colbert’s episodes taped in Vancouver. Le sigh. But if you’re in Vancouver, this can easily be remedied by seeing Colbert in the flesh, by reading these here instructions.
Bassprov's Mark Sutton in Toronto, Feb. 5. Photo by Sharilyn Johnson
Joe Bill and Mark Sutton returned to Toronto to bring this town some much-needed bass-fishin’ action in the middle of winter.
Bassprov is like the Seinfeld of longform improv. It’s a show about nothing. Two men sitting in a boat, trying to catch some fish.
But like real-life recreational fishermen, it’s really not about the fish at all. It’s about the conversation: relationships, sex addition, the genetic superiority of Heidi Klum and Seal, the work of Alanis Morrisette, and justification for lowering the toilet seat — interspersed with liberal use of the word “duplicity”. And despite what that description indicates, it somehow all makes total sense.
This was my 4th time seeing Bassprov, and my favourite so far. (I think there’s something about the pace of NYC’s Del Close Marathon that keeps me from getting fully engaged with an all-talk-no-action performance.)
Sutton and Bill are teaching a 2-day improv workshop through the Impatient Theatre Co. all weekend, and performing their second Bassprov show Saturday night at Comedy Bar. Tickets are $10 at the door only.
View more photos of Friday’s show.
It was a whole year ago that a last-minute venue availability and a scramble to produce a show resulted in the aptly-titled Short Notice Show. Thursday night (Feb. 4), Matt Folliott, Alana Johnston, and Kayla Lorette celebrate the first birthday of SNS with a crazy-packed lineup featuring Etched in Sketch, Ca$hmo, Frenzy, Tony Ho, Sandra Battaglini, PB&J, and Punchdrysdale. Phew!
I checked out last month’s SNS for the first time and regretted not doing so sooner. It’s truly a cohesive show, rather than the disjointed parade-of-acts that so many of these small-venue affairs are.
It all happens at Rearview Mirror at 193 1/2 Baldwin in Kensington Market (where Bread & Circus USED to be).
Doors are at 8:30, and you’d be advised to get there promptly. The place is tiny, and it’s PWYC, so seating gets real intimate real fast.
If you have any knowledge of longform improv in North America, I don’t have to tell you that this announcement is a Big Frickin’ Deal: Matt Besser and Matt Walsh are coming to Toronto to perform Asssscat for the very first time, Saturday, May 8 at the Glenn Gould Studio.
If the cool factor of the above sentence is lost on you, here’s a quick backgrounder: Besser and Walsh are two of the four co-founders of the Upright Citizens Brigade and the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatres in New York and Los Angeles. The UCBT’s training program is arguably the best there is, was, and ever will be. It’s inspired by the improv teachings of Del Close, who the UCB4 (rounded out by Ian Roberts and Amy Poehler) studied under in Chicago.
Asssscat is a longform improv show that’s been held on Sunday nights in New York for eons, long even before the UCBT existed (it runs is Los Angeles now as well). The cast rotates, with regulars from SNL, Conan, and 30 Rock (the UCB4 are now all Los Angeles-based and frequently participate in the LA theatre’s edition). Read the wiki for more info.
Matt Besser at the UCBT-NY. Photo by Sharilyn Johnson
The show is produced by Vanguard Comedy, and details about ticket on-sale dates and who will round out the cast are still to come. For updates, add it to your Facebook events.
All this week in comedy venues around Toronto – east, west, north(ish) and south – is Toronto Comedy Week for Haiti. All proceeds from the participating shows will go directly to the Red Cross Haiti Fund. These are hot shows, too — Sunday Night Live, Yuk Yuk’s, alt.dot, Second City, and so on.
Can’t make it to a show this week? You can buy an advance ticket for the Toronto Sketchfest Best of the Fest show on March 5, and your cash will be added to the coffers. Agoraphobic? You can even give via the website, which is hooked up to Second City’s boxoffice for donation purposes.
