With a brand-new show filled with anecdotes, awkward pauses, and headliner DeAnne Smith, the National Arts Centre (NAC) hosted its second Toronto Comedy All-Stars show of the season on Jan. 9.
“Here we have got a headliner, Ali Hassan as emcee, and the three of us plus Ernie Vicente, and that is good enough,” Danish Anwar, the de facto leader of the All-Stars, said as he introduced Andrew Chapman and Caitlin Langelier to the green room. “A short line up, but a good one.”
The Charlatan sat down with All-Stars Danish Anwar, Andrew Chapman, and Caitlin Langelier to talk about inspiration, telling the truth in comedy, and making Ottawa laugh.
The Charlatan (TC): Three words that best describe you?
Danish Anwar (DA): Whoa, Twitter on hardcore mode . . . Always doing something.
Andrew Chapman (AC): Out. Of. It.
Caitlin Langelier (CL): I’m Caitlin Langelier.
DA: Hey, that’s four—contractions are cheating.
TC: How did you get into comedy?
DA: I started in my mid-twenties, a bit later than most, but I just wanted to really do it. I’ve always been a fan, so one day I was like “Fuck it, I want to try this.” No crazy story.
AC: I started in high school, and luckily enough can’t do anything else. I actually can’t even do this that well.
CL: Well, I went to school for it in Toronto. There’s a program called the Humber Comedy Writing and Performance program. [I] started doing it in high school for fun and then at 18 did the program.
TC: What would you do if you weren’t a stand-up comedian?
DA: This is Canadian entertainment . . . You can’t just do stand-up exclusively—it’s a very small community that do.
AC: Stand-up always leads to something—you get really good at it, then maybe you host a show or write . . . That’s what I do.
CL: Nobody makes a living off of this . . . like four people maybe do stand-up exclusively. [To complement her work, Langelier is studying children’s media]. Eventually that’s what I’ll end up doing, working there [writing kid’s TV shows] but I love stand-up.
AC: You probably could just do stand-up, if you had eight roommates . . . probably.
TC: What’s your style? How do you come across as a comedian?
DA: Well [if] you saw me last time, I will probably do the exact same set. With one new joke. That’s why I like coming to Ottawa and doing political comedy. People here like that sort of thing—they respond to it, so you can play with more obscure references too.
AC: Like the well-known holiday candy bar Toblerone. Dangerous, sharp, unbreakable triangles of chocolate. You put two together and they are shark jaws.
CL: Uncomfortable. Like for me, myself, I try to endear the audience to me like a lost little lamb.
DA: I would describe her as laid back—you’re not like the Energizer bunny running around the stage.
TC: What happens if you don’t get a laugh?
DA: You just move on . . . In your mind you are dying, but kind of just move.
AC: Some other comedians just take a drink of water. I like that maneuver. You can see them working it through their head . . . but sometimes in longer sets you need that. If it was just straight jokes all the time, by the end for all your punchy stuff, the audience is too tired to laugh.”
CL: Gloss over it. It’s fine. Don’t let them see ya sweat.
DA: If you can do a joke on a Sunday night for like seven drunken alcoholics who are just there for the WiFi, you can manage the big money.
TC: What’s your interpretation of the formal NAC setting for comedy then?
DA: Hecklers are very unlikely.
AC: It is Ottawa. And I mean that in a very complimentary way. They are very polite and composed.
CL: There is a potential. I mean a heckler can be anyone pulling attention negatively away from the comic, but I wouldn’t expect here more than anywhere else.
AC: My favourite thing is you find people who react with “That’s just like Tracy,” and lean in to tell their own story.
DA: There was one time . . . It was a couple who brought their 14-year-old to the show, right? And made it known. So, we brought up the question about cougars and younger guys, and we just kind of made fun for bad parenting when they yelled “maybe he’d find someone [referring to their son].” But that’s the closest we’ve got to heckling. A very supportive, encouraging, married couple with their child.
TC: How do you start a conversation with someone?
AC: For me, I go into stand-up voice, [and] it gets difficult. What annoys me is some comics aren’t really listening and just waiting for that moment to slip in their material. Not paying attention—just focusing on their joke.
CL: She wants to know if we can chat chicks up using our comedic charms.
DA: I’ll try and show them a cool thing on my phone and be “oh that’s just me onstage, that’s my dog, that’s my balcony, oh here is a thing I wanted to, nope that’s still me on stage. Yeah I’m a comedian.” Tinder is great for that.
TC: Is your material actually influenced by everyday life?
CL: Ninety-five per cent of it is truth and a little bit of it is a flight of fancy, if it helps it flow better. It is important to be honest because audiences can tell.
DA: Constructing jokes is not as good and animated as real-life stories that you are excited to tell people. If you’re not genuine, like you said, audiences can tell.
AC: But there is that other phenomenon where you have a great story and they don’t translate on to stage. [To The Charlatan:] But did you ask that because some people find them so outlandish it couldn’t happen?
DA: Oh no. They happen. They really do happen. I would say most material, thinking about my set tonight. You take a bit of poetic licence. Hell no to lying. What’s the point then? Then anyone can come up with a crazy story and say it on stage. Because of the way we live our lives, things we do, people we run into, and the decisions we make most importantly, lead us to weird situations.
TC: Where can we see you guys next?
DA: Shows in Toronto, but back at the NAC on May 6th. I may be doing a show at Absolute March 7. In fact, maybe Ottawa versus Toronto this time.
AC: I’m here all week hosting Absolute Comedy.
CL: I’m in London next month. But London, Ontario if anyone wants to go there.
