REVIEW: Edmonton Comedy Festival math adds up
Down at the ATB Financial Arts Barns Saturday evening for the last night of this year’s Edmonton Comedy Festival, the comic math added up pretty good: during the 4 Days of Funny, those in attendance this 1 night got 2 solid hours of gut-busting comedy from 4 great comics, and 1 who needs some work. That’s at least a 4.5 out of 5.
The night’s host, CBC’s Steve Patterson (right), segued his way throughout the evening with his charming Seinfeldian routine, taking the skill he’s developed staying on the clean side of funny in order to maintain employment with that monolith of an organization known as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He riffed uproariously on standbys like marriage and parenthood, and did an impressive job gleaning laughter out of NAFTA and whatever the hell it’s called now. This guy’s got a skillfully light touch, gently poking fun at the overkill of the way too in-your-face ATB ads. It’s pretty clear this guy has learned from his time at the CBC just how far he can push it with the suits without crossing any lines, and in this regard he was the evening’s most thoughtful comedian. If Jerry Seinfeld were there, and had any knowledge whatsoever of Canada, he would have given Patterson two very big thumbs up.
The evening’s first performer, Serena Shane, did a set almost as scattershot as her upbringing (she lived in Saskatchewan, was born in Edmonton, raised in Leduc, and is currently living in Calgary). She was funny in many places, but picked too many subjects, abandoning a number of them a couple of lines in, and had too little solid material for a good number of the rest. She was at her best when she was the crudest, offering enough laugh-out-loud moments to demonstrate her comic gifts working blue. Ultimately, her set was OK but could have been a lot better. Comedy could use a female Sam Kinison, and Shane has the skill to make a stronger mark in this direction once she’s able to curate her ruder material into more consistent comedy.
Not much needs to be said about Edmonton’s Sean Lecomber (right), the strongest Canadian comic – next to Patterson – on the night’s bill. The guy is quite the talent. The most remarkable part of his set was turning a heckler’s line into such a successful riff throughout his set that even Patterson and the headliner Sheridan brought it into their sets. If that isn’t a sign of a great comic instinct I don’t know what is. Lecomber jumped on a couple other lines from the audience, and while ad-libbing bits out of his rear end he was able to grind out enough laughter to fill the auditorium a few times over. Nothing he touched lacked humour – whether it was of his tales coaching atom level hockey, the town of Vegreville, the march of technology, and where he thinks Trudeau and Hitler would rank in an Alberta popularity contest, it didn’t matter. It was all hilarious.
Third up, Vancouver’s Erica Sigurdson turned in a perfectly paced set of consistently funny material peppered with just enough deadpan one liners to keep the audience on their toes. She offered perhaps the most witty insight available into the reason why Vancouverites aren’t having children: they can’t afford a two-bedroom apartment. Sigurdson used her uniquely twisted perspective to make the most stereotypically tread comic territory seem fresh. You really have to be good to make a bit on gender differences within relationships funny, and she showed herself to be more than worthy of the task. A solid performance by a very gifted comic.
Erica Sigurdson
Headliner Rondelle Sheridan (top photo), from Chicago, offered the best performance of the evening. Due to the evident skill shown by the rest, it wasn’t by an appreciable distance. Topics included getting old, the behavior of millennials, unusual sleeping habits, gluten and peanut allergies, young men with old man haircuts, climate control, the dire state of the world, zip lining in Zimbabwe. Venturing down all these roads, it didn’t matter where he went. His entire set was witty, often edgy, inspired genius. Original, memorable, and smack in the middle of the “your loss if you missed it” category.
As good as Sheridan was, Lecomber, Sigurdson and Patterson were not far behind – a giant endorsement that the Canadian comedy scene has some superlative talents who are very deservedly earning their growing audiences.
