Kinda Sorta Maybe Like a Podcast

Comic Gavin Matts has had a pretty good last couple years. Since being named SiriusXM Canada's "Next Top Comic" in 2017, he's made a string of TV appearances in both Canada (The Stand-Up Show with Katherine Ryan, The Halifax Comedy Festival) and the United States (Conan, Comedy Central's Stand-Up Featuring). During that stretch, he also released a comedy mixtape called Premature and moved away fro...

Hawksley Workman has been making albums since the late 90s (his first full-length, For Him and the Girls, came out in 1999) and he's been releasing new music every year or 2 since then. He's rarely been one to stick to the same vibe record-to-record, jumping between styles and influences in a way that he says was likely frustrating for record execs, his touring band, and perhaps even some of his f...

Born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, New York-based comedian Dave Merheje has had a pretty stellar 2019. He started the year off with a half-hour Netflix stand-up special as part of their Comedians of the World series, popped up as a series regular on the first season of the critically-acclaimed Hulu series Ramy (available in Canada on Crave), and he won the Comedy Album to the Year at the 2019 Ju...

Seán Cullen is one of those rare Canadian performers who has fans across any age group. People were excited to shake his hand and give him a hug as he sauntered to the stage at one of his recent JFL42 shows. For followers of the comedian's long career, the show at Toronto's Comedy Bar was a decidedly deeper and more intimate evening. As a comedian who is well known for pure silly, he was refreshin...

Robby Hoffman is an original comedy voice whose writing and delivery on stage puts her at the top of the stand-up game. Her bit for The Chris Gethard Show with Queer Eye's Antoni Porowski is one of the funniest things on YouTube, and her other television writing -- which includes CBC/IFC's Baroness Von Sketch Show -- has even won her a Daytime Emmy for Odd Squad on PBS. Last September, she recorde...

Nick Nemeroff is a Montreal comic who has been a mainstay in the Toronto comedy scene for the past few years, winning Best Newcomer and Best Breakout Comic at the 2017 and 2018 I Heart Joke Awards. His comedy has been described as "aggressively deadpan" -- and if you're wondering what that means, just watch his set from last fall on Conan. It's a joy. After visiting Winnipeg for the Oddblock Comed...

Chris Gethard is comedy's favourite underdog. He is the fine wine that other comedians cannot recommend enough. His years of study as an improviser at the UCB Theatre in New York have made him a great listener and a truly empathetic storyteller. During this interview in advance of his appearances at JFL42, Chris gave Andrew Lizotte some of the most emotionally open and thoughtful answers of his ca...

Shortly after Donald Trump decided to run for President, improviser and actor Anthony Atamanuik -- a veteran of UCB Theatre in New York who had worked on 30 Rock for years and wrote for and appeared in a number of other comedy television shows and specials -- was asked to do a one-off show as Trump after playing an exaggerated version of then-candidate Trump in an improv scene. That original live...

Greg's podcast, The Smartest Man in the World, is an hour and a half of crowd work and riffing off of the headlines. It's also consistently very funny. It's a style of performer/audience relationship that harkens back to the days of Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and Joan Rivers; however, the format, subject matter, and approach are all modern. Like Greg himself, it combines the technical proficiency of...

Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld are the writers, actors, and editors behind the award-winning webseries Jake and Amir, which began while the pair were writers at College Humor. In 2013, they started an advice podcast called If I Were You, and over the years, they have done special live recordings of the podcast around the U.S. Now they're bringing the podcast north of the border to Canada, with l...

In the fall of 2017, Toronto comic Courtney Gilmour was coming off the biggest professional accolade of her comedy career: being named the co-winner (along with Montreal's DJ Mausner) of the Homegrown Comics competition at Just for Laughs Festival. The win included a spot among the 42 feature acts at September's JFL42 comedy festival in her hometown. In the midst of JFL42, Andrew Lizotte sat down...

Rhys Darby may be best-known to audiences as Murray Hewitt on the acclaimed HBO series Flight of the Conchords, but the New Zealand Army veteran is also an accomplished stand-up comic, having worked all over the globe for nearly 2 decades and put out 3 stand-up specials. He's also starred in films such as Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi's brilliant vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows an...

After becoming a comedy and film superstar in France, 46-year-old Morocco-born Gad Elmaleh has spent the last couple years based out of New York, starting comedy in a brand new language and paying his dues again in rooms like the Comedy Cellar and Joe's Pub in NYC, and other smaller clubs across the United States. Of course, being an established performer -- even in another language -- meant Elmal...

Bronx-born comic, writer, and actress Gina Brillon made her first TV appearance over 10 years ago on Comedy Central's Live at Gotham. Since then, she's appeared on Chelsea Lately, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The View, and the CBS sitcom Kevin Can Wait in a recurring role. She also had a feature role in Gabriel Iglesias' comedy film, The Fluffy Movie, and put out a one-hour special, Pacifically Sp...

SheDot Festival ("Toronto's Festival of Funny Women") is in its fourth year, and has grown from essentially a local festival in its first year to one featuring performers from all across Canada and the United States. SheDot co-producer Karen O'Keefe (who now runs the festival alongside founder Martha O'Neill) has been involved since its inception, and has also been performing stand-up for over 10...

Rebecca Reeds started her comedy career in Ottawa, performing at open mics and eventually being part of an Ottawa Fringe Festival show. She's since made the move to Toronto, where there are not only far more opportunities for her to get stage time and hone her craft, but where she can perform alongside touring comics who regularly hit up the city (such as a recent opening spot for Matt Braunger at...

Tim Gray and Matt Nightingale are both veterans of the Winnipeg stand-up comedy scene, and this year they're both a part of the local contingent at the Winnipeg Comedy Festival. Besides their accomplishments as stand-up comics (Tim's first comedy album comes out this June, and Matt is a regular host at Rumor's Comedy Club), they're also members of the sketch troupe HUNKS. Their work with HUNKS --...

Amanda Brooke Perrin is a veteran of the Toronto comedy scene who recently moved to Los Angeles. Approaching 10 years as a stand-up comic, Perrin has appeared at festivals like JFL 42 and Bridgetown, has appeared on Match Game and written for This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and just released her debut comedy album (AKA Randy, available on iTunes) last summer. Just prior to her first visit to the Winnipe...

Whether you've heard his stand-up, read his articles for The Onion and The AV Club or watched @midnight, chances are you've know comedian Dan Telfer's work. Dan Telfer joins Aaron Demeter at the Oddblock Comedy Festival to talk about his work on @midnight, gives his opinions on living in L.A. versus his native Chicago, and opens up about his second bout with cancer.

Pete Johansson has spanned the globe with his comedy, spending the bulk of his career living in Vancouver, Los Angeles, and London. Just a few weeks ago, Pete made the move back to Canada, this time calling Toronto home. Paul Little speaks with Pete before this year's Winnipeg Comedy Festival. Among many things, they discuss his various moves, his experiences with the Edinburgh Fringe, and what he...

Paul Little chats with longtime stand-up comic and deliverer of Just for Laugh's annual "State of the Industry" address, Andy Kindler, in advance of his multiple appearances at this week's Winnipeg Comedy Festival. Topics include Andy's past visits to Winnipeg, Donald Trump and the state of journalism, how far comedy has come since the 80s, what David Letterman meant to television, and his other w...

On his day off between Just for Laughs tour stops in Thunder Bay and Winnipeg, a slightly under-the-weather Jeremy Hotz joins us for the second time to talk with Paul Little about Just for Laughs, working with Ken Finkleman, the state of Canadian television, the improvised nature of his sets, and how despite never really going the political comedy route, even his current shows spend a couple minut...

Shazia Mirza doesn't tend to stay in one place for very long. The award-winning stand-up comic, originally from Birmingham, England, has toured Britain, the United States, Canada, Pakistan, the United Arab Emerits, India, and all over Europe. Coming from a Muslim immigrant family in Britain, Shazia wasn't expected to end up in a career in comedy -- and in fact, she was a science teacher before she...

Veteran stand-up comic, writer, and actor Demetri Martin headlines this year's Just for Laughs comedy tour as it careens through Western Canada, and a couple weeks ago Paul Little had the opportunity to chat with Martin ahead of his Canadian dates. They talk about his expectations for the tour, his experiences on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, his two seasons of Comedy Central's Important Things...

Canada was first introduced to the comedic mind of Daryn Jones on his early 2000s Comedy Network show Buzz, which featured he and Mista Mo in various sketches and random bits and interviews on the streets of Toronto. In the many years since, Jones has become a household name -- and even for those that might not instantly recognize the name, they've almost certainly seen his work on CBC's The Merce...