The Rivoli has hosted many now-famous artists in its 40-plus years in business, yet none are as closely associated with the Toronto venue as the Kids in the Hall. Serving as both incubator (they honed their absurd, irreverent comedy style on its stage) and launchpad (Lorne Michaels first saw them here) for the five-member comedy troupe, it was only natural for the Kids, now middle-aged adults, to mark their 40th anniversary on the stage that started it all.
Unfortunately, best-laid plans often go awry, and the day before the show, it was announced that Dave Foley would be unable to make it. He was recovering from pneumonia, which he explained in a pre-recorded clip that played over the PA before the rest of the group — Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson — emerged in wedding veils. It was the first of many sketches they would perform that had been banned, censored, or otherwise altered by HBO, CBC or, more often than not, Amazon on their long, strange trip through ever-changing network and streaming platform morals.
But the best-laid plans reared their head again, and the quartet quickly messed up their lines and opted to restart the show. It was a running theme throughout the night: chaotic lack of preparation as members read from scripts, lost their scripts, found their scripts, and adjusted on the fly. Odds guitarist Craig Northey, who provided the night's music, and Late Bad co-host and actor Laura Cilevitz, who was "playing the role of Dave Foley," had nervous looks about them as they tried to keep up. But the chaos was fuel for the core group, who laughed off every flubbed line and missed cue, often talking over or interrupting one another as they told the behind-the-scenes stories for each sketch.
Though there were some familiar characters — Thompson's Buddy Cole, McKinney's Darill — these were not the Kids in the Hall's best sketches. In some cases, the material has aged poorly; McCulloch's brief turn as an Asian rickshaw driver was by his own admission, a poor choice. But pushing buttons was always a core piece of the Kids' comedy, and they performed songs and sketches about AIDS, cancer and glory holes (Thompson's first contribution to the group) with a palpable glee that carried the night. For their part, the audience of about 100 friends, diehards and collaborators who packed the Rivoli's back room were game — ready to follow the Kids down whatever absurd rabbit hole they had dug.
After a brief intermission, Northey performed a solo rendition of Odds classic "Someone Who's Cool" followed by an audience Q&A moderated by Cilevitz. After a question about Brain Candy, McKinney revealed after years of being held up by music rights, a 4K version of the group's lone film would be coming to Paramount+. Cilevitz noted that Thompson was David Bowie's favourite comedian, while McKinney claimed that Tupac Shakur, who performed on Saturday Night Live while he was a cast member, was a big Chicken Lady fan.
Summing up their legacy to the crowd, McCulloch explained, "We're not hated, because we never got really big," which has allowed the group to continue for four decades. If anything, the group's 40th-anniversary performance was less of a celebration of their significant achievements and more of a showcase of the hunger that still drives the comedy legends. As McCulloch put it at night's end, "We're still obsessed."