"You're still a bit tight." Ian Edwards jabbed at the crowd who came to see his last show of the ten-day JFL42 festival, but never let their rigidness get to him. With his mainstream yet edgy style, he soldiered on despite the weird audience dynamic, and delivered a consistently enjoyable show.
Vancouverite Sophie Buddle started off the show by sharing some amusing thoughts she had about her Renaissance-era body type and whether she could perform blowjobs with lockjaw. Her line about going to a tanning bed wearing a t-shirt and board shorts was cute as opposed to funny, but otherwise she showed a lot of potential. At 21, she's already got a subtle, magnetic stage presence and the ability to create material about topics that most comics aren't thinking about, so she's definitely a comic to keep an eye on. Notably, Buddle's likening of being drunk to being pregnant was especially sharp and induced a solid laugh, plus her subsequent smiling about how she had figured out the audience's sense of humour was charming.
Despite the fact that he didn't quite stick the landing as he ended his hour-long set, Ian Edwards' performance was lovely. His joke about how people shouldn't be surprised that Rachel Dolezal was the president of Spokane chapter of the NAACP because Spokane is "whiter than snow" was amazingly acerbic. Similarly, his material on why he only dates women who've had abortions and why he thinks men should support every woman's Right to Choose more actively was also piercingly comical.
Having said that, a fair amount of Edwards' comedy came across as more thoughtful than laugh-out-loud funny. As he painted a picture of how negative the news is and explained why you should date a man that loves you enough to lie to you, his delivery was so relaxed that he seemed disinterested in his work. Consequently, his astute writing unfortunately didn't hit as hard as it should have.
Vancouverite Sophie Buddle started off the show by sharing some amusing thoughts she had about her Renaissance-era body type and whether she could perform blowjobs with lockjaw. Her line about going to a tanning bed wearing a t-shirt and board shorts was cute as opposed to funny, but otherwise she showed a lot of potential. At 21, she's already got a subtle, magnetic stage presence and the ability to create material about topics that most comics aren't thinking about, so she's definitely a comic to keep an eye on. Notably, Buddle's likening of being drunk to being pregnant was especially sharp and induced a solid laugh, plus her subsequent smiling about how she had figured out the audience's sense of humour was charming.
Despite the fact that he didn't quite stick the landing as he ended his hour-long set, Ian Edwards' performance was lovely. His joke about how people shouldn't be surprised that Rachel Dolezal was the president of Spokane chapter of the NAACP because Spokane is "whiter than snow" was amazingly acerbic. Similarly, his material on why he only dates women who've had abortions and why he thinks men should support every woman's Right to Choose more actively was also piercingly comical.
Having said that, a fair amount of Edwards' comedy came across as more thoughtful than laugh-out-loud funny. As he painted a picture of how negative the news is and explained why you should date a man that loves you enough to lie to you, his delivery was so relaxed that he seemed disinterested in his work. Consequently, his astute writing unfortunately didn't hit as hard as it should have.