Comedy at The Drake Sucks

I had just come out of a tense job interview and I needed to unwind. The gentlemen who had grilled me were friendly, but prone to maniacal laughter for reasons I never quite grasped. Live comedy looked like the perfect way to kick my feet up and celebrate Israel’s 58th birthday. As if a UJA sponsored dance party is any better?

Most of the people I know were heading to the party. When I got through to Benji, he leaped at the idea of seeing a live act. I had read in one of the weekly papers that there was going to be something called ‘Joke Club’ at the Drake Hotel, an uber trendy boutique hotel which also boasts a bar, restaurant, night club, and tons of artsy folks, as well as snobby pretentious artsy wannabes, plus the random celebrity and pseudo-celebrity (read Canadian celebrity).

After kickin’ it at Ben’s place we headed down. We were the first ones there, and the host, Nick Flanagan, was there to greet us. I hope he Googles himself and finds this post, thus enabling him to read about how unfunny he and the show were.

Rather than getting some half-decent comedy bits, Benji and I tightly gripped the arm rests of our lawn chairs while a succession of crap flowed before us. Rather than jokes, we got stream-of-consciousness babble. A lot of it was read from pieces of paper. “How Dadaistic!” some of the Drake denizens likely thought.

“What shit!” Ben and I agreed. Ben was prepared to leave, but he accepted my suggestion that we stick things out for a while to see if there was any improvement. There were eight ‘comedians’, after all.

We were three or four in, and I wanted to gouge my ears out, lobotomize myself, and then jump into a tub with a hairdryer. That’s when Katie Crown came along.


(Katie Crown)

She was the closest thing to a saving grace for Flanagan’s freak show. Crown is the former winner of the Tim Sims Encouragement Fund award, as featured on The Comedy Network. She is also a member of the comedy troupe “Knock Knock. Who’s There? Comedy!”. She was awesome. A beacon of light in the cold darkness of sub-mediocrity.

During the intermission we grabbed some drinks at the bar. Some comedy shorts were projected. They were quite hilarious. Things were looking up.

And then more crappy acts came on. Benji and I left early. It was nice to get outside.

The verdict? Well, for $5, you get what you pay for. Hell, my bottle of Heineken cost more. And as for the comedy? Three individual performers made crass/insulting Holocaust jokes. That was lame. But the show itself? Pure, unadulterated horseshit. Next time, I’m going to the dance party.