November 17, 2011
by Bill BrownsteinThe Gazette
November 17, 2011
MONTREAL - Steph Tolev hadn’t anticipated spending more time explaining the name of the comedy revue – in which she is featured and which she has organized – than talking about the actual content of the show.
The show is called She’s Got a Shape Tour. Apparently, the title was derived from a Will Ferrell quip about well-endowed women. But don’t jump to any conclusions. It’s not some trenchcoat-set fantasy. It’s parody – not peeling.
This is an all-female show from Toronto consisting of two sketch troupes, Ladystache and Cheap Smokes, as well as two standups, Julia Hladkowicz and Diana Love, and it will likely leave comedy audiences of all genders guffawing when it touches down in town, Friday and Saturday at 9 p.m. at Théâtre Ste. Catherine.
The tour began in Toronto on Monday and will have hit London and Collingwood before arriving here. Tolev, one-half of the Ladystache tandem, had an agenda in addition to comedy with this travelling show.
“Most comedy tours have maybe one girl on it,” she says. “Screw that. So we decided to take a bunch of funny women and show people we could be funny on our own, that we didn’t need to have a guy on our tour to succeed.”
The women have all distinguished themselves on the funny front, be it at sketch-comedy fests here and in Toronto or on CTV’s Comedy Now! And Ladystache, having recently showcased for Just for Laughs, may be at the fest next summer.
“The fact is, though, that our group is very non-gender specific,” says Tolev, 26. “We make fun of everyday things. I don’t think we’ve ever made a period joke in our lives and I’m pretty sure we never will. We do a lot of banter and loose improv.”
Tolev’s point about tokenism on the comedy front is well taken. Without doubt, this country’s women have been making major strides on the scene.
Prior to Just for Laughs last summer, local wit Eman staged She’s Canadian, Eh!: a women’s comedy festival featuring an impressive lineup of up-and-coming Montreal comics that could match that of any male show.
“It would be amazing to join forces with women comics from Montreal, Toronto and across the country,” Tolev says. “But that will have to wait. Ours was a last-minute tour, and we could only take off a limited period of time. We are mostly all working serving jobs by day to get by.”
Tolev has been performing only the last three years and attributes some of her comedy fodder to her roots: “I’m of Bulgarian stock, and I haven’t heard much positive about the place. But I can’t complain: Bulgaria has given me a lot of comedy – unfortunately not enough yet to pay the bills.”
She’s Got a Shape Tour, featuring Ladystache, Cheap Smokes and Julia Hladkowicz and Diana Love, plays Friday and Saturday at 9 p.m. at Théâtre Ste. Catherine, 264 Ste. Catherine St. E. Admission: $15. Call 514-284-3939.
When it rains, it pours: chuckles. There is an abundance of super comedy in the city over the next three nights. In addition to the She’s Got a Shape Tour, there’s the Laugh Pack Late Show, whose headliner is the incomparable DeAnne Smith (on the subject of top-shelf women wits) Thursday at the ArtLounge in the Segal Centre. There’s the ever-sharp Winston Spear at the Comedy Nest, Thursday to Saturday.
And then there’s Mike Wilmot, in a class all his own, Thursday to Saturday at the Comedyworks. And no finer compliment has ever been directed toward this Canuck than a joint admission from several journos that they “would actually pay our own hard, cold cash to catch Wilmot.”
“It doesn’t get much better than that,” deadpans Wilmot, sounding more raspy than usual.
“Phlegm issues notwithstanding, I’m feeling pretty good, all things considered. I’ve just been away for a week and it was a blast – from what I can recall.”
Wilmot was part of Lewis Black’s Comedy Cruise to the Caribbean. Along with the ever-acerbic Black, Kathleen Madigan and Greg Proops, among others, Wilmot entertained 600 diehard comedy fans who withstood a hurricane on a cruise that made pit-stops in St. Maarten and St. Thomas.
“It was unbelievable. We had these parrot-heads – like the ones who follow Jimmy Buffett – following us around. The idea of doing a cruise had never appealed to me before. It made me always think that’s where standups go to die.”
But with the barking Black at the helm, this cruise was different. The comics would congregate nightly in a lounge after dinner and before the midnight run of the chocolate fountain aboard the ship.
“For the first day and a half, a lot of people turned green,” Wilmot recalls. “But the nausea wasn’t the result of the comedy. It was the hurricane. On the other hand, I had my sea legs and was as hungry as ever.”
And, evidently, as thirsty as ever, too.
“Really, my whole life is a blank now, thanks to the boozing aboard. The bars never close. That’s never good for me. But Madigan put us all to shame on that front. It was like one night that lasted seven days.”
His Lost Week notwithstanding, Wilmot still has regrets that his acclaimed though short-lived TV series, The Foundation, got cancelled. The role represented something of a departure for him in that he sported tailored suits and not his usual two-day stubble. Otherwise, Wilmot was comfortable in the lead as an uncharitable lout who headed a charitable organization.
“Too bad that show went down the shitter,” he says. “But the network wanted to put more money in its home-and-garden TV show instead. Only in Canada.”
But don’t feel too bad for him. He just returned from a two-month tour of the United Kingdom – where he is hailed as a comedy hero – and before that, he did two months Down Under – where he could become a comedy hero. Better still, he is now being represented by Lewis Black’s management team and will be unleashing his fury in the U.S. with a vengeance in the spring, starting with New York City.
“Yeah, I’ll be an overnight success in mid-life. But I don’t think I’ll be doing any of the network late-night shows because I still say ‘cock’ way too much. Fortunately, there’s pay- and cable-TV, where I can be as filthy as I want,” says Wilmot.
No matter what kind of success he could find in the U.S., Wilmot, a serial performer at the Just for Laughs fest’s Nasty Show, allows that Montreal will always occupy a special place in his heart.
“What’s not to love about Montreal? It’s Disneyland for alcoholics. Or, if Montrealers prefer, the evil brother of Toronto. Or, my personal favourite, Toronto’s mistress.”
Mike Wilmot performs Thursday at 8:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8:30 and 11 p.m. at the Comedyworks, 1238 Bishop St. Call 514-398-9661.
bbrownstein@montrealgazette.com
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