Kennedy and Mal have been fans of James Acaster forever, and after sharing comedy specials and his series on Taskmaster with me, they made me a fan, too. I immediately loved Acaster's dry, wry, sardonic sense of humour, as displayed in the "cabbage prank" story he shared on Would I Lie to You:
So with Dave off on yet another business trip, and Zach able to make it into Toronto with us, we four had a side-splitting time seeing Acaster perform in Toronto on Wednesday night.
Using the conceit that he was actually a James Acaster impersonator, the comedian was able to make ironic fun of himself in meta-level layers. And as this was the first stop in his tour beyond the UK, it was interesting to see Acaster making audible notes to himself along the lines of, "Ah good, you understand Strictly Ballroom references" or "Unbelievable you'd react negatively to a joke about the Catholic Church. That got huge laughs all throughout Britain but I guess you polite Canadians draw the line at mocking pedo priests."
And speaking of so-called "polite" Canadians: When Acaster first mentioned the world tour and accidentally said, "This is my first stop in America...er...I mean Canada..." he got actual boos from the audience, and that caused him to react. "I thought you were supposed to be the polite and humble ones." But then he seemed to stop and think and said more carefully and confidentially, "Ah yes, I see. You've got those stirrings on your southern border. You need to be ready. You know that, right?" That's all that needed to be said about that, and it was appreciated.
But back to James Acaster, or rather, Craig Simons (the UK's #1 James Acaster Tribute Act): I guess some level of audience heckling (or at least talk back) is expected at his shows, and it seemed to become a smooth part of his act when someone shouted out during the set up of one of his stories, Acaster reacted, began the story again, and when several people shouted out at the same point (getting big laughs), he noted, "Aha, and now the jester's dilemma. One interruption got a laugh, a second, louder, interruption got a bigger laugh, and now you need to wonder: will interrupting the set up for a third time get an even bigger laugh or just make me look like a prat? Let's see what he'll decide, shall we?" And starting the set up for yet a third time saw (mostly) noone try to interrupt. Funny but smoothly moving on.
So when Acaster began the set up for another joke some time later, Kennedy saw the punchline coming before anyone else and barked out her biggest laugh into the quiet of Massey Hall. And Acaster stopped and turned towards Kennedy on the side balconey and said, "I think you're ahead of everyone else here." And laughing even bigger now, Kennedy yelled back, "Sorry!" Acaster replied, "Oh, don't be sorry. You paid your money, laugh when you like. But now I have to wonder." Scanning the rest of the audience, he said, "Are people going to think it would funny to interrupt my set up to this joke by mimicking the woman with the outrageous laugh at the appropriate moment? Or will me talking about it make that seem less funny? Let's see, shall we?" Acaster took another run at the joke and a couple of people tried to copy Kennedy's big laugh, leaving Acaster to shake his head sadly and say, "None of you quite got it, did you?" Kennedy laughed big at that and Acaster turned again to her and said, "No, that's not quite what you did before." And Kennedy was losing it as the show moved on. (This was not the first time Kennedy stopped a comedian's show with her big laugh; it apparently happened last summer, too, when Kennedy and Mal went to see another of their favourite comedians, Chris Fleming, live in Toronto.)
The routine went on to bigger and more outrageous stories, but interacting with Kennedy was definitely my favourite part. Awesome show, especially for us.
