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Comedy

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Good grief! ‘Tis well into August already. Where is this year going and how come the months have been slipping away so dashed rapidly?

As regular followers will know, the year has not – thus far – exactly gone to plan. I am about to tempt the fates by looking at some of the things that are in the calendar for the next few months, in the firm expectation that our ill-fortune is now behind us and that I will have only positive things to report.

Fingers… etc, etc… firmly crossed!

Disregarding completely the year’s previous disappointments we are once again leaving the island later this month. We will not – however – be venturing abroad, but traveling instead to the interior of British Columbia.

We have been aware for some time that we have perhaps been neglecting family and friends who do not live on the island. For a period COVID gave us good reason (or perhaps excuse) for this omission, but as we have now apparently joined with much of the rest of the world in deciding that the pandemic is over (or at the very least not worth bothering about) we figure that it is time to get some skin back in the game.

The trigger for this excursion has been an ‘engagement’ in Kelowna (in the Okanagan) organised by The Girl’s First Nation. Using those three days as a core we have planned a trip to Kelowna, Peachland and Kamloops on the mainland, followed by a visit further north on the island to Courteney – a place to which I, at least, have yet to go. We are looking forward to the trip and I will be posting updates, images etc as we progress.

There is a fair bit of music in our immediate future as well. There are still several weeks to go in the Brentwood Bay Music in the Park season and we are also in the coming week going to be attending one of the Butchart Gardens concerts.

Come September we will be seeing Bonnie Raitt at the Royal Theatre here in Victoria – and at the start of October we are going to Vancouver for a few days to see… wait for it… Peter Gabriel! You might recall that The Girl and I saw him the year after we moved to Canada – in Edmonton – on the Rock, Paper, Scissors tour that he did with Sting. I really thought that this time he had retired from the road, but here he is – back again and with a new album about to drop as well. Being a subscriber to Gabriel’s Real World studio I have been in receipt of pre-release tracks from the album at each new moon (it’s a Peter Gabriel thing!) and I can report that it is going to be a good one.

We also get to see one of our favourite comedians – Dara O’Briain – in September here in Victoria, so there is much to which to look forward.

We can’t wait…!

 

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The Kickass Canada Girl – who loves her BBC comedies (quite understandably!) – brought this Tracey Ullman clip to my attention. It caused me to laugh hugely – so those of you who have not already seen it get a chance to do so now.

 

Enjoy!!

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Way back when The Girl and I were still living in the UK and taking appropriate advantage of the cultural offerings that the capital had to offer, our thoughts would – every once in a while –  turn away from the high arts – the galleries, concert halls and the National Theatre and so forth – in the direction of a little light relief.

At such times we would go looking for some comedy!

On one such occasion we decided to eschew our favourite Irishman (what is it that makes pretty much every Irish comedian funny, even before they have truly gotten going? All it takes is an – “Ah, c’mon now…” – or a – “Jaysus, yer a feckin’ eejyut” – in the brogue and I am well on the way to cracking up) and went instead to see a certain Scottish funny man who was at the time highly visible on television.

It was an interesting evening. The Scot was disappointing. It wasn’t that he was unfunny, it was more that what had appeared on TV to be a rapier wit – firing off one-liners and acid put-downs on all sides – turned out to be wholly scripted, down to the last barbed repostes.

What did not disappoint – and not only because we had no expectations – was the warmup act – a Canadian comedian called Craig Campbell. His sharp-eyed observations on both Canadian and UK life and culture had us in stitches, practically slipping off our seats and into the isles.

I turns out that Mr Campbell is sufficient of an Anglophile that he has taken up permanent residence in the West Country and now tours regularly in the UK. I was surprised to discover that my brother had also become an enthusiast for the hairy Canadian’s humour and we subsequently all went together to see him on several further occasions before we left the UK.

A couple of weekends ago – on the eve of my birthday and after The Girl had retired for the night – I was searching our cable channel for a little late night viewing when I happened upon a recording from Nanaimo of a touring comedy show – compared by one Craig Campbell! Not having heard of the ‘Snowed In Comedy Tour’ at all I immediately went online to the InterWebNet. I discovered that, though the recording I had found was from last year’s tour, the 2017 version was not only already underway but was also coming very shortly to Victoria.

I had half a mind to quiz The Girl the next morning as to whether she was aware of the engagement (she being primarily in charge of our social calendar) but before I could so do she presented me with a birthday card containing… tickets for the show!

Isn’t she a darling?!

I can happily report that Craig and his fellow Canadian comedians were in fine fettle and a riotous evening of merriment was enjoyed all round.

If you get a chance – in Canada or in the UK – I do urge you to catch him!

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