The Nasty Show

Now THAT’s more like it! Five comedians (six, if you count the host), offensive content and alcohol. There’s a recipe for a fun night! I headed down to Club Soda a little before 9pm and walked headlong into the longest line I had ever seen for a comedy show. It went around 2 corners and down 2 blocks. Guess the show’s pretty popular, eh? I was a bit surprised that they managed to get everyone in and start the show on time, but by a little after 9:30pm, they were ready to rock n’ roll.

For those not familiar with the landscape of downtown Montreal, let me bring you up to speed. La rue Ste-Catherine is known for many things: shopping, strip clubs and peep shows, whores and the gay village, likely in that order of priority. Le boulevard St-Laurent divides the city into East and West and is home to trendy clubs and bars, for the most part, though it also boasts its share of strip clubs and XXX theatres. Club Soda, home of the Nasty Show, is located at the corner of St-Laurent and Ste-Catherine and let me tell you, there’s no more fitting place to hold it. It’s right across the street from a VERY scary strip club called Café Cléopatre and within easy access to a number of other dens of iniquity (for those interested in such locales, I’m sure I’ll do a full review if I ever get myself out of debt sufficiently to visit a few), not to mention the ever-present streetwalkers that roam the corner of Ste-Cat and St-Laurent. Though to be fair, the police presence during the festival scared off a number of the “vendors.”

The show itself ran a little less than 2 hours and was raunchy as hell. Bobby Slayton handled the hosting duties and kept the show moving well and the audience entertained. The rest of the line-up included Jay Oakerson, Dom Irrera, Patty Rosborough, Patrice Oneal and the token Canadian, Mike Wilmot. Despite probably being the “biggest name” amongst the group, Irrera was second man on deck and, to his credit, didn’t use any of his more well-known material. This show is pretty much a comic’s excuse to break out every offensive scrap of material that they would never dream of using on the Tonight Show. Nothing was off-limits. Truthfully, they went for the easy laughs, with plenty of sexual and religious content and racial slurs, but the audience just lapped it up. I think this may be the side-effect of all this political correct nonsense nowadays: people seek an outlet for all the things that are normally “inappropriate” and revel in it.

If there were truly any weaknesses in the show, it was the inclusion of Rosborough. She tried hard and was funny, but her act seemed pretty forced to me. I’ve never been a big fan of female comedians in the first place, so that’s probably my natural bias rearing its ugly head. So be it. I just think that men are better at doing raunchy comedy. Kudos to her for giving it a shot, though. Overall, she got a good reaction from the audience, so her act wasn’t a bomb.

Mike Wilmot closed the show and was clearly the strongest act. It must be a little nerve-wracking to be the closing act of a good show, but he came through. Though maybe it’s actually easier to go on last because the audience is already so warmed up that they’ll laugh at damn near anything? No clue. All I can say is that he was good.

Audience interaction highlight of the night: Jay Oakerson, a fat guy in his late 20s, had just finished doing his bit on why he doesn’t sleep with hot women (1. He can’t [fuck them]. 2. They won’t [fuck him].), when he asks the audience, “Where are all the fat girls tonight?” The guy beside me shouts out, “Toronto!!!” Huge audience reaction. Nicely done.

At any rate, I got my money’s worth and will happily go again next year. Til next time…