CBC’s new sketch comedy aims for fresh perspective
Female-centric Baroness von Sketch Show aims for a fresh perspective
The Canadian quartet behind CBC’s Baroness von Sketch Show is quick to give kudos to shows that helped popularize comedy sketches on the small screen. Yet while acknowledging the lingering influence of series such as SCTV and The Kids in the Hall, the all-female cast is hoping to bring a fresh perspective to a familiar format.
“I think that what’s great about the show that we have is that it’s just having worked in a lot of rooms with men sometimes you don’t pitch all of your ideas because you’re like: ‘The guys aren’t going to get this,”’ cast member Jennifer Whalen said in an interview at the recent CBC presentation for advertisers in Toronto.
“The freedom of just being fully yourself is huge.”
Whalen co-stars alongside Carolyn Taylor, Meredith MacNeill and Aurora Browne on Baroness von Sketch Show, which premieres tonight on CBC-TV.
The single-camera series has no laugh track and conjured a “kind of documentary feel” to how it is filmed, noted showrunner Taylor.
“We knew we wanted natural lighting. We knew we wanted on-location — we didn’t want [to film in] studio,” said Taylor, who has written on multiple seasons of This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
“We knew we wanted our characters — even if they went to a broad place — to be rooted in something grounded.”
The six-episode sketch series promises an irreverent look at navel-gazing contemporary culture, from the politics of ordering a coffee to entitled coworkers and even a book club meeting gone wrong. The debut episode also offers a decidedly feminist glimpse at politics with a look at a world summit decades into the future where all of the leaders are female.
“Women are shown in the media as a fraction of themselves — not as they fully, fully, truly are,” said Whalen, who was head writer on 22 Minutes, developed long-running comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie and worked on The Ron James Show.
“I think every woman that has friends will appreciate the way you talk to your girlfriends. Women are hilarious. They’re dirty, they’re smart, they’re irreverent. But you don’t really see that on television. So I think that it’s really exciting to show more of what I experience.
“I feel like this show reflects more my life experience than anything I’ve ever worked on.”
While bringing a distinct approach and voice to the series as four female performers in their 40s, the cast also felt it was critical that the show resonate with a broad audience.
“We are obviously always tackling how things are different for women compared to men,” said MacNeill, an actor and writer who works regularly in Canada and the U.K.
“But we really try to make it personal to make sure that it’s all relatable: what happens to us personally, what we experience and what we see.”
“I think the movement in television you’re seeing that the creators — no matter who they are — [are] being able to have final creative say and really be in charge of how something gets out,” said Browne, who recently co-created and starred in the web series Newborn Moms.
“For any performer, and every comedian, that is another layer of satisfying experience.”