HER SATIRE HAS STING
Late-night debut for Bee
Last fall, Vanity Fair published a piece on the “titans of latenight TV” and featured a photo spread of the aforementioned 10 titans. So what was wrong with this picture?
It was an exclusive men’s club. Not to detract from the comic brilliance of Conan, Colbert, Kimmel, Corden, Maher, Meyers, Noah, Oliver, Fallon and Wilmore, but there was one glaring omission: Samantha Bee.
True, her new late-night show, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, only debuts Monday at 10:30 p.m. on the Comedy Network here — and on TBS in the U.S. But when the piece came out, Noah had yet to make his first appearance as Jon Stewart’s replacement on The Daily Show, and Bee’s 13-episode, half-hour weekly series had already been announced.
Social media went postal — for good reason. With the exception of Joan Rivers — who lasted a year eons back — and Chelsea Handler — who had a seven-year run on E! and can now be caught in a Netflix docu-series — latenight has been a no-ladies land on the tube.
Bee, a Toronto native and McGill grad, was the longestserving correspondent on The Daily Show. The buzz was that Bee was mightily miffed — dare we say stung? — to have been passed over for The Daily Show hosting gig.
It’s understandable: Bee’s skewering skills are second to none, as is her deadpan delivery. She could have handled the hosting gig easily.
On Full Frontal, Bee will be focusing exclusively on satire. There will be no interviews with celebs shilling their latest movie/ disc — invariably the weakest part of the late-night show format. Nor will there be any sketch
ensemble shticks. And don’t be expecting Bee to challenge some thesp/singer to a ping-pong match à la Fallon.
It should all make for highly entertaining and irreverent viewing. And, let’s hope it will have network execs further breaking down the barriers of the latenight club.
As for the Vanity Fair guy-shot, Bee got even: She photo-shopped, on the same spread, an image of herself as a centaur with lasers darting menacingly out of her eyes. Methinks the men got the message.
David Acer has opted for a toaster oven over some lemons, lilacs or nylons. Comedy Nest co-owners Acer and Phil Shuchat are celebrating the club’s fourth anniversary this week and, according to the etiquette, one should offer fruit, flowers, nylons or appliances to those achieving this milestone.
The Comedy Nest has actually been in existence for nearly 40 years at various locations around the city, but Acer and Shuchat had to pretty much start from scratch in the old Forum venue after original owner Ernie Butler had passed away.
Acer, also a standup comic and close-up magician, admits times were tough in the early years. “We struggled,” he says. “But the place is almost always packed now with loyal regulars. And headliners across North America keep coming back.”
Even from beyond North America. Gad Elmaleh, the most successful comic in the franco world, made his Englishlanguage debut in the city at the Nest a few months ago.
Local comics like Joey Elias and Derek Seguin also sell out and bring down the house regularly.
On tap this weekend is Sean Kent of Last Comic Standing and Modern Dads fame. Helen Hong, from Inside Amy Schumer and New Girl, is the headliner, Feb. 11-13. On Feb. 25-27, it’s Canuck super-wit and Nasty Show regular Mike Wilmot. Seguin returns March 17-19, and the legendary Kids in the Hall star Scott Thompson unwinds April 7-9.
Acer is now setting his sights on a fifth-anniversary bash. “What kind of gift does that entail?” he asks. Silverware or wood.
“At my age, I think I’ll take the wood.”
Also celebrating this week is the Comedyworks. It has been one year since the club reopened under new management at the Bishop St. location formerly operated by Jimbo Skomorowski.
Walter J. Lyng, the club’s comanager and a standup comic, decides to go for a clock over paper as the gift for making it through the first year.
To mark its first anniversary, the Works has brought in much-heralded headliner Kurt Metzger to perform Saturday evening. Apart from his comedy smarts, Metzger has written for the Chappelle Show and Inside Amy Schumer and provides the pipes for Randall Skeffington in the Comedy Central series Ugly Americans.
“It wasn’t the easiest thing getting the club going and we experimented with a lot of different formats, but the word has been spreading,” Lyng notes. “It has also helped that local comics like Andrew Searles, Franco Taddeo, Guido Cocomello and Massimo have filled up the place with their fans. We’re striking a good balance serving up a menu of local as well as Canadian and American comics.”
Also helping to entice patrons is $5 parking on the street — which has proved to be a major bonus for those who shy away from the downtown venue.
“Plus, our kitchen opened in November, so there is a full menu available now,” Lyng says. “And to keep the party going, we have late-night karaoke after midnight on Tuesdays and weekends.”
The third of this city’s three anglo comedy clubs, Yuk Yuk’s, is not celebrating any milestone for now. Since its recent New Year’s Eve bash, the club has been without a home, but manager David Nankoff pledges that Yuk Yuk’s will be moving into new digs shortly, likely in the area of the Quartier des spectacles.
It has been quite the saga for the Montreal chapter of the Canadian comedy chain. Yuk Yuk’s founder Mark Breslin launched his first club here in 1980, but it lasted only a year.
In the fall of 2013, Breslin and Nankoff brought the club back to town in the Rialto Theatre complex, but less than two months later, it closed shop.
In the fall of 2014, Yuk Yuk’s reopened in the Allure club complex on downtown Mackay St. But after 15 months in operation, it went dark again.
“We are (currently) working out the terms with the new venue,” Nankoff wrote in an email this week. “They have asked that we not say anything until the paperwork is complete. The one thing I can say about the location is that it will be a little bigger and better.”