Comedian Shawn Hitchins has had quite the decade. Finding success early in his career and even sparking a movement (Ginger Pride Walk) in Edinburgh, it would be understandable to feel like the universe (or whoever is in charge of it) is smiling down on him. Unfortunately for Hitchins, life is a big fan of the ol’ sucker punch, and he soon found himself facing compounding personal losses and a cancer diagnosis, not to mention the strains the global pandemic placed on those whose livelihood depends on large crowds in packed venues.
Processing these things was fertile ground in which Hitchins began to grow his new touring show, Ribald, which he will soon be bringing to audiences in Victoria, his first time performing in the city since leaving Toronto and relocating to Vancouver four years ago. For those unfamiliar with the word “ribald,” it means vulgar, hilarious, rude, and sexy in equal measures; exactly what Hitchins was going for.
“It’s… just a filthy word,” says Hitchins. “I love it. I feel like we need to bring back all those old words. Old, filthy words.”
And while the show may well be filthy, it’s also shot through with some history, and chronicles Hitchins’ search for the truth of his comedic roots. It all started for the comedian, who is gay himself, with a gay joke told to him in the ’90s.
“The ’90s gay joke is the first joke that I learned when I was 10 and held on to until [now],” he says. “Did I understand it? Why would a 10-year-old tell this joke? Why did the adults think it was funny?”
These are the questions he mused about at 10, and the questions that led him to find the answers at 44. While he knew that the joke came to him from the back of his school bus in the town of Egypt, Ontario, and was likely told to him, “the only gay kid in school,” to gauge his reaction, he started to wonder what the longer history of the joke was. He decided it was his mission to find the headwaters of his comedic flow.
“So, I did it through a process of pathology,” he says, “and then I did it through a process of taking the joke to therapy, and then I transmuted the joke through classical or through contemporary and Victorian gay literature, and then I traced it back to classical antiquity.”
If Hitchins’ memoir A Brief History of Oversharing is anything to go by, the comedy will be bawdy and full-throated. While the show is his baby, he is quick to point out that it takes a village, and other artists have been eager to get involved.
“I hope people are going, ‘Are we watching him spin out again?’” says Hitchins, “But you know, what’s been lovely is to build community around the work while I’ve been meeting other artists here. And there’s just this fun thing that’s happening to the show that hasn’t really happened before, which is [that] usually you hustle, and you push, and you try to convince people to get on board, and it’s just an approach that… I’ve been able to leave behind with this show.”
As far as what the joke in question is, Hitchins won’t say until showtime.
“The joke is heavily guarded,” he says. “But it’s everything you need to be a practicing homosexual, mentally, sexually, physically, spiritually.”
Ribald
7:30 pm Friday, September 25
7:30 pm Saturday, September 26
$20-$25, Intrepid Theatre
intrepidtheatre.com