From left to right, Sneha Sridhar, Avri Jeffcott, Owen Stephenson, and Gursher Baath.
“I had been sick for the whole week. I was having a bout of insomnia, and hadn’t had more than 2 hours of sleep in like 48 hours. I was surviving off a coffee and five packs of honey from the SLC Tim Horton’s and I had to host one of our open mic shows in that state.”
This was how UW comedy club co-exec Gursher Baath (fondly) described his worst standup comedy fail.
When asked about how he ended up getting through this particularly disastrous open mic, Baath said, “When I watched back the video, I was messing up the order of words and my joke timing was off, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. That’s kinda the lesson there, like everything can go wrong in your set, and it will still turn out okay. It’s not that bad as you think it is, you’re going to walk out of it just fine,”
The UW comedy club is made up of students by day and some pretty funny comedians by night. “Our main goal was to introduce comedy to a lot of the students because a lot of people don’t really know much about stand up comedy. We wanted to build a community of people who wanted to do and watch comedy,” Owen Stephenson said, another club co-exec.
What started off with booking out classrooms for open mics has expanded to open mics in bigger venues on campus. The club also runs joke writing sessions, and comedy workshops hosted by external Canadian comedians.
The club open mic nights usually occur once a month somewhere on campus, such as the Grad House and the SLC Bomber Pub. Not only are these nights a great showcase of the comedic talent we have at UW, but also a cool opportunity to dip your toes into doing a little bit of your own standup if you have ever been curious.
As another club co-exec Sneha Sridhar said, “Comedy doesn’t have the best reputation of being friendly to newcomers, so it’s nice to have a safe space where people do comedy. The UW Comedy Club kind of does a really good job of being a very supportive and safe space for people to try out new things.”
While the open mic nights give people a good opportunity to do stand up in front of an audience to hone their performance skills, another equally important aspect of comedy is writing jokes and telling a coherent story. “We host write and chill sessions somewhat regularly, so that people who have never done comedy before can kind of build up their confidence,” Stephenson said about their efforts to incorporate other aspects of comedy into the club. “It’s essentially just kind of a low pressure place where you can meet other people and discuss what you’re working on if you want to take a stab at writing comedy. You can bounce some ideas off of other people and get suggestions for your joke,” Sridhar said about these write and chill sessions.
Attending many of these events held by the UW comedy club got me thinking: is there a reason people are drawn to watching and doing standup comedy, beyond just for laughs? When asked about the significance of comedy in general, Baath responded with the following: “Humour in itself is a fundamental pillar of life, of being human. It’s a communal thing that brings people together. Being in the room with another student or friend and hearing them joke is mainly what I hope we provide with our shows and events,”. “It’s all about bringing Student Life back into the Student Life Centre,” adds club secretary Avri Jeffcott jokingly.
Going beyond student comedians, the club also has local comedians in the area perform at their open mics, which provides a fresh perspective to the jokes that are told, as well as some pretty cool opportunities to learn more about the comedy scene as a whole. These professional comedians are also invited to other events, such as their write and chill sessions, with their most recent session hosting a joke writing workshop by local KW comedian Lukas Swore.
I was curious to learn more about the KW comedy scene, and what kinds of events were up and running in the area beyond campus. I was able to reach out to two external comedians. Renee Groux, one of the local comedians that has performed at a UW comedy club open mic, is currently working as a co-producer of Girl Night. Girl Night hosts regular live comedy events in the KW region that showcases famous women comedians, as well as those who are up and coming in the comedy scene. Matt Render is another local comedian that has performed at UW comedy club events, who is currently on a comedy tour of the GTA.
When asked why people are drawn to watching and doing comedy, Render responded: “I like the idea of seeing people just speak honestly and candidly without any type of pretense. Being philosophical but also being able to be lighthearted and humorous is something I find refreshing about comedy. It’s something that has helped me through the hardest times in my life.”
Groux echoed a similar sentiment: “The most skilled version of doing comedy is not just to tell the audience who you are, but to tell the audience something about themselves. I think that’s the number one thing people are looking for, to be seen for who they are. That’s my goal and that’s when I feel I’ve done a good job.”
With much of the leadership within the UW comedy club graduating, they are looking for students to join the club and carry on with hosting these events on campus. If you’ve ever found yourself interested in watching (or maybe even doing) a little bit of standup comedy, reach out to the UW comedy club at @uwcomedy to see how you can get involved in the coming terms. Regardless of what ends up happening, you will definitely enjoy yourself, and hopefully, even laugh a little.
