Any nerves the up-and-coming Victoria comedians might have been suffering from during their five-minutes sets weren’t evident during the recent Mark Breslin Victoria Comedy Showcase, even with the president and founder of the national comedy club chain Yuk Yuks sitting stage right taking notes.
In fact, all of the upstart comedians, two of which are graduates of Camosun’s now-defunct Applied Communication Program, appeared to be unreasonably calm during their short spots, some even addressing Breslin at side stage.
Shane Priestley and Shawn O’Hara, the aforementioned grads, held their own, standing out amongst the comics with some hilarious banter and, in the case of O’Hara, some Movember-inspired tomfoolery (“I’m either celebrating Movember or working on my heroin dealing career,” he joked).
The remaining comics, Abdul Aziz, Myles Anderson, Darcy Collins, Justine Drummond, Mikey Dubs, Drew Farrance, Jake Gyllenskog, Mark Robertson, Alain Williams, Ryan Bangma, and Natalie North, all had their moments as well.
Anderson, the best physical comic of the night, likened his masturbatory habits to that of a nature program’s gazelle, eagerly demonstrating the facial reactions to being caught on camera. Williams, who suffers from a stutter, centered his five-minute slot around that, to many laughs. And North spent much of her set talking about her recent bunion surgery.
One comic joked that the lineup was dominated by “white dudes with beards wearing plaid,” which was true, as he was one of them, but each performer offered something original to the healthy crowd at Heckler’s, a bar located in the basement of the Ramada Inn on Gorge Road.
Headliner Jason Lamb, also an on-air personality at The Zone radio station here in town, gave a solid 10-minute set, but lacked the manic energy of a lot of the younger comics. Oh, and local improv master and comedian Wes Borg treated us to a French song that had the crowd howling. MC Jane Stanton, a comedian from Vancouver, had some goofy stage banter with the crowd, even suggesting to one patron that she was taking him home that night “for sure,” while stroking his hair.
As for Breslin, it was hard to read his reactions from the side of the stage, but he did stay for the whole show and was receptive to most of the comics, so that was encouraging.
Comedy is a hard business to break into (ask one of the many failed comics out there), but this showcase of local comedy was at least a gauge to measure the growing success of standup comedy in Victoria.