A little N.L. flavour at Just for Laughs
MONTREAL — My inner skeptic immediately thought “prank” when word first leaked about the Newfoundland and Labrador coming-of-age romp Son of a Critch, which debuted on CBC at the beginning of this year.
It had all the markings of super parody: created by This Hour Has 22 Minutes satirist Mark Critch, famed for his impressions of Rex Murphy and Donald Trump, and his This Hour writer/producer buddy, Montrealer Tim Mcauliffe, who has also been a writer/producer on The Office, The Last Man on Earth and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
It gets better: Critch would cast himself as his own father in the show and Malcolm Mcdowell would play a character inspired by Critch’s grandfather. Yes, that Malcolm Mcdowell, star of the marvellously twisted Stanley Kubrick classic A Clockwork Orange, If …, O Lucky Man!, Caligula, Halloween, TV’S Entourage and, more recently, Bombshell, in which he slipped into the Guccis of Fox’s Rupert Murdoch. Really?
But no prank at all.
Son of a Critch is the real deal, based on Critch’s bestselling memoir of the same name and focusing on his angst as an 11-year-old in St. John’s. Since its première on CBC, the series has turned out to be the most-watched Canadian comedy in the country. And the legendary Mcdowell is indeed one of the stars, playing the crusty Pop with a convincing Newfoundland and Labrador/ Liverpudlian twang reflecting the roots of his character.
Shooting has already begun on Season 2, but Critch, Mcauliffe and Mcdowell, along with co-stars Claire Rankin and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as the young Critch, hightailed it from Newfoundland and Labrador to discuss their show at Just for Laughs in Montreal on Saturday.
“I grew up in a very weird way and I would always tell these stories to my long-suffering friend Tim (Mcauliffe),” Critch said in a Zoom interview before the festival appearance, along with Mcauliffe and Mcdowell. “After writing the book, Tim said we should try to make this into a TV show. We came up with a couple of scripts and ideas and then went to Just for Laughs in Montreal two years ago to pitch it. And CBC picked it up right there.
“We exaggerate some things, but the spine of every story is true. It would have been easy to make a madcap East Coast comedy with a bunch of wacky things happening and wacky people. I wanted big characters, but also that it all be grounded in reality. There’s a lot of bittersweet sadness and truth to go along with the comedy.”
The decision to cast Mcdowell was inspired. The decision to reach out to him at all was gutsy. But to the surprise of Critch and Mcauliffe, Mcdowell was immediately smitten with the project.
“How the mighty have fallen,” Mcdowell cracks before adding: “I didn’t know a lot about Newfoundland before, but I read Mark and Tim’s scripts. I then called my manager and told him: ‘Just whatever it takes, I want to do this. Make it work.’
“I’m in love with the writing. I love its gentle humour. There is also a little tear in the eye occasionally. There is just something so sweet about it. And, also, I had never seen anything like this before.
“I’ve now become friends with everybody here. I’m inveigled in it now. I’m thrilled to be part of it. There’s no getting out. The die is cast.”
Mcdowell has become smitten with Newfoundland and Labrador as well.
“It is now one of my favourite places on the planet. I love it to death. I love everything about it. It has flashbacks to Scotland or Ireland,” marvels Mcdowell, who was born in the suburbs of Leeds and raised in Liverpool.
“I consider Newfoundland my second home. And the people have such a great sense of humour. They have to, living in this climate. It’s easy for me, living here only two months in the summer. But I’ll probably give winter here a miss.”