The Second City’s Latest Show is Near Pitch Perfect
If you have a funny bone in your body, chances are the Second City will tickle it. The comedy club is a Torontonian staple, launching the careers of Colin Mochrie, Dan Akroyd, Ron James, Mike Myers, and Eugene Levy among others. The humour is so expansive and close to real life, the idea of you not laughing is, in itself, laughable. Their latest show ‘Something Wicked Awesome This Way Comes’ keeps up their reputation as the best place to be on a Friday night with hilarious sketches, good service, and tasty food.
Getting over the hurdle
Something Almost Wicked Awesome This Way Comes
Courtesy of Second City
The show lasts about two hours including intermission, throughout which patrons are encouraged to order pub fare or drinks off the menu. Efficient wait staff cater to the audience as the show goes on to keep stomachs full without distracting from the cast. With all the madness happening onstage, though, it would be hard for anyone to take their eyes away!
Sketches from last night’s show were both topical and traditional, starting with an interactive skit about Rob Ford’s mayorship and moving onto broader ideas, such as my dad’s favourite: wanting to give away your kids. The cast constantly moves around the theatre, giving the audience a real comedic experience they will be sure to remember. Audience participation is encouraged, or forced upon (avoid the middle front section if you have stage fright), all for the sake of hilarity and fun.
The show was technically perfect with sound and light complementing each skit. The direction was tight and taut, such that the sketches blended into each other seamlessly. The cast were uniformly strong and the writing was close to top notch. The best sketch by far was performed by the three male cast members (Rob Baker, Kris Siddiqi, and Adam Crawley). Siddiqi played a man grieving the loss of his father and the unfortunate mishap (wherein the body escaped the coffin) at the funeral, only to find out his two best friends (Baker and Crawley) put the footage on YouTube. Callback humour is used at its best when the cast busts out a rendition of the remixed version of the viral video.
Carly Heffernan shone during her sketch of the typical pop song called “Words and words,” while Inessa Frantowski almost made me choke on my Malibu Baybreeze as she exclaimed things that “aren’t cheating!” Dale Boyer kept the chuckles coming with her dry humour.
My only complaint about the show was how very political it was. Political humour can be very funny when done right, but when the entire audience titters awkwardly at the punch line of a sketch, you know it’s been done wrong. If the cast tweaked the offensive Iraq skit, the show would have been perfect, but even with it, they came very close. The evening was a lot of fun, the drinks were tasty, and the cast put on a great show.
The Second City Toronto presents ‘Something Wicked Awesome This Way Comes’ on Sundays at 7:00PM, Tuesdays to Thursdays at 8:00PM, and on Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 and 10:30PM.
Tickets cost between $24-29, with discounts offered with valid student IDs, except for the 8:00PM Saturday show. The Second City is located at 51 Mercer Street; the nearest subway station is St. Andrew.
