Mcclellan gets back to in-your-face comedy
Trent Mcclellan is used to taking leaps of faith. Moving from Corner Brook to Calgary in 2003 with no prospects and a meagre bank balance, with just the hope of finding something worthwhile, was a big one. Making what he calls on his podcast The Generators, “the decision to leave real life” and quit his nine-to-five job developing kids’ programs at the Calgary Boys & Girls Club to do comedy full-time was another.
And being a comedian, he turns that particular life-changing move into a joke, recalling how he became jobless at the start of the summer, when comedy gigs are few and far between, and describing the dressing-down he got from the agent who’d been booking him for weekend gigs in far-flung towns, villages and hamlets across the prairies.
But the leaps paid off, as Mcclellan’s skewed East Coast sensibility made him a popular performer on the standup circuit, earning him his first Comedy Channel special in 2008, and eventually, one of the most enviable comedy gigs in the country as a writer, performer and co-host of CBC’S enduring Halifax-based, news satire series This Hour Has 22 Minutes, which has a landmark 30th anniversary season lurking in the wings next year.
BACK IN THE HA! SPOTLIGHT
This fall, Mcclellan reestablishes that faith in himself as he gets back up onstage and returns to making people laugh without the help of cameras, editing, wigs and a team of writers. On Friday, Oct. 29 and Saturday, Oct. 30, he’s joining a crew of Canadian comics for the Ha!ifax Comedy Fest’s Unplugged shows at the Atlantica Hotel Halifax
The 22 Minutes star will be joined by acts like Pete Zedlacher and Deanne Smith, and Nova Scotia talents Travis Lindsay and Clifton Cremo at the event, which spans four weekend shows. He’s eager to experience that immediate feedback of laughter that he recently heard from a club audience in months at at Punch Lines in Saint John.
“It was the first time I’d done 45 minutes to an hour in a year,” says Mcclellan during a chat in Point Pleasant Park, one of his favourite spots not far from his current home in south-end Halifax. “I’d done some little guest spots around town and different things, but to get up there and do a full hour, I didn’t even know if I still had it anymore, after such a long break.
“I think with comedians, it’s like a muscle. If you don’t use it, it’ll atrophy and get weaker. So even with regards to being on 22, I feel like I have to always stay sharp and get stage time.”
Mcclellan gets that boost of laughs from the live studio audience on the set of 22 Minutes, but often he doesn’t get feedback from filmed pieces and sketches until weeks or years later when someone shares a clip on social media or mentions it in conversation, and he has to recall even filming it after seasons of hectic behind-the-scenes activity.
Then again, he still sees people reacting to material he performed as a standup 12 or 13 years ago — forever emblazoned across Youtube — when he was developing his timing and approach to jokes and examining the work of comic greats like George Carlin and Richard Pryor to see why they connected with audiences in such a huge way.
Watching later specials like Positive Vibes, you can sense how his material has become more personal over time, an evolution the comic compares to learning guitar by learning from other people’s music first before developing your own sound, until it’s as much about the songs as it what you want to say through the songs.
USING CHILDHOOD MEMORIES FOR LAUGHS
Lately, he’s been referring back to his childhood in Corner Brook, with some recent material about bullying and the perspective he had as a kid. He’s found that taking on a confessional tone has become an enjoyable approach to comedy because he feels it’s true to himself while audience members still relate to his experiences in one way or another.
“For a long time, I’d look around and I was the only Black kid in the city,” he says. “(I was) raised by my grandparents who were white, so I’m walking to school every day and my parents are in their 60s and my friends’ parents are in their 30s and I always felt like I was the outsider, at the window, looking in through it.
“When I see a lot of other comedians, and other artists, I see a lot of similarities; that sense of not being connected, like you’re looking through a different lens than everybody else. I think there’s more of that to come in my comedy, for sure.”
“I think with comedians, it’s like a muscle. If you don’t use it, it’ll atrophy and get weaker. So even with regards to being on 22, I feel like I have to always stay sharp and get stage time.”
COMEDY, NOW LIVE ON STAGE
Mcclellan feels it’s appropriate to get the comedy festival ball rolling again with next weekend’s Ha! Fest show after so many months offstage, since the Halifax festival was his first major comedy event when he was starting out 13 years ago.
Appearing then on the same bills as brilliant comic minds like Irwin Barker and Mike Wilmot made him realize the kind of work and vulnerability he would have to devote to so his sets would stand out, and being away from the spotlight of the live stage for over a year brings back the importance of that dedication to connecting with an audience.
“I appreciate it now more than ever, and I think all comedians I talk to feel the exact same way. So when you’re backstage hamming it up with other comics, and having that connection again with that community, that means a lot. Because you thought that may never come back, we didn’t know in the early days of this stuff that’s going on.”