JFL Toronto Review: The Alternative Show with James Adomian
Filed under: Reviews, Festivals
I have been reviewing this festival for a long time now, and one thing remains as true as ever: The Alternative Show is the best show of the fest.
The new producers of JFL Toronto are doing a lot of things right this year. First of all, The Alternative Show is back at the original Comedy Bar location. Secondly, for the first time in a long time, they are genuinely booking Canadian acts that you should be aware of. Honestly, maybe the hardest part of doing comedy in Canada is struggling to be represented in your own media. So seeing a lineup at the top of its game felt great.
This is the show for hardcore, deep cut comedy fans. This is the show that shows how the sausage gets made. It's late night chaos, where the comedians are just enjoying playing off each other and doing their favorite bits. This is why they love performing. It's because of shows like this.
On a slightly sadder note, Andy Kindler did not return to reprise his role as host this year. However, James Adomian more than stepped up to fill his shoes as host. I really appreciated James' homage to Andy at the top of the show.
If you've never seen Adomian before, or if you are a fan who's never seen him live, this is the way you want to see him. He of course does stand up off the top of the show, but he is also a master impressionist who does character guests throughout the show. However, my favorite way to see him live is on a variety show, because you get to see him play off the other comics in character.
This time, James' guest co-host was beloved Toronto community favourite Chris Sandiford. You might already know Chris from his CBC show Shelved, his Netflix show God's Favourite Idiot, or his reoccurring role on What We Do in the Shadows. Go see Sandiford live, because he deserves to be appreciated on his own merit as a live performer. He more than held his own on the lineup, but also seamlessly played the straight man to Adomian the whole show.
Next, I wanna talk about Rebecca Payne. Performers like her are the backbone of any alt comedy scene – what sustain a comedy scene. I mean this as the highest compliment. Rebecca will not only get the young, hip audience laughing, but also your grandmother die laughing. She has such a sweet, kind presence, but remains deeply and truly weird. She's a personal favourite. Go see any show she produces in Toronto.
John Blair is a master of a very hard genre of comedy: Solo Sketch. His premises for every scene are so uniquely specific and somehow deeply relatable. Once he makes you see the pattern of a character, you will never be able to unsee it for the rest of your life. Everybody will obviously have their favourite and those favourites will stay with you. Mine was "Conservative Radio Host who as a boy was sucked into a Magical Fantasy Novel". You can see what I mean about specificity.
My favourite part of any festival and specifically this show is discovering an artist I didn't know. For me that was Eric Andrew's, and I can only describe him as a comedy illusionist. I can barely describe it, but afterwards I spent hours thinking whether he was actually killing, doing awkward crowd work, or was the whole thing a giant set-up on the audience? I wanna say that he knew what he was doing the entire time, but as someone who has reviewed a lot of shows, I could not see the strings. Genuinely very impressive.
The show is running September 18-20 at Comedy Bar West, at 11:00 PM. If I haven't convinced you why you should take a chance on this show, then there never was any help for you in the first place.
Tickets for this and every other show at Just for Laughs Toronto can be found at toronto.hahaha.com.
Tags: JFL Toronto, Just for Laughs, The Alternative Show, James Adomian, Chris Sandiford, Rebecca Payne, John Blair, Eric Andrews, stand-up comedy, sketch comedy
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