The 41st edition of the Just For Laughs festival kicked off with a one-two punch in the guise of its two popular club shows: Just For The Culture and the Nasty Show.
Ever since I caught the former show — also under its original moniker the Ethnic Show — I have maintained year after year that it never failed to entertain with its constant solid line-ups. And the same can be said for this year.
As usual, festival favorite Alonzo Bodden excelled as the show’s host, as he deftly set the tone and warmed up the audience for a night of culturally diverse comedy. Although it was a strong, solid line-up, two comics really stood out with their respective killer sets. Zarna Garg left the sold out crowd at Club Soda convulsing with laughter at her observations of family life within the East Indian culture. She uttered what I consider to be an early contender for my favorite line at the festival: “Indians have only one pronoun… doctor.”
The other was Gianmarco Soresi, whose closing set that dealt with such issues as anti-Semitism, stereotypes and visiting a gun show in Florida was filled with so much hilarious angst, it was reminiscent of Woody Allen’s stand-up days circa 1964.
The Nasty Show was nasty with a capital “N”, as this year’s roster successfully tried to outdo each other with whose material would raise the most eyebrows.
Host Mike Ward proved with his monologues why he is the bad boy of Quebec comedy. However, say what you will about his controversial material, Ward exhibited his sharp storytelling skills — one about why he was known as the comic that went to the Supreme Court and the other about an incident in a central Florida bar and a man wearing a Santa Claus suit — and how he can craft and structure a story to its logical and hysterical conclusion.
Like the Just For The Culture show, the Nasty Show also had two stand outs from its line-up. Toronto comic Steph Tolev hit the nasty ground running with her buzz saw voice, frenetic delivery and raunchy audience interactions with her scabrous material that was blush worthy, to say the least.i
Minnesota native Geoffrey Asmus was another audience favorite, with his acerbic takes on such issues as book banning in Florida, why there are French street names in Montreal and 9/11, which produced my second contender best line at the festival. When Geoffrey had a conversation with a New Yorker about 9/11 and said to him that he couldn’t find Minnesota on a map, Geoffrey replied “Neither could Al-Qaeda!”
For more information, or to purchase tickets, to any Just For Laughs show, go to http://www.hahaha.com.
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