A familiar name in local comedy has been rebooted.
In the 1990s, Jason Luke started putting on concerts and comedy shows in his hometown of Prince George. Eventually it reached the point that the comedians were lined up to come to the city because Luke established a regular set of venues at which they could perform. He did that business under the name Metro.
Luke moved away and spent years living elsewhere, but recently returned as a real estate agent. You can't remove someone's funnybone without major surgery, so he was soon itching to revert back to his old promotional habits, even his old moniker of The Metro Comedy Circuit.
Saturday night at the Greek Hall (the basement space at Greek Orthodox Church at Fifth Avenue and Tabor Boulevard) is the first show of the MCC revival.
"People remembered the Metro name. We did a lot of good shows back in those days, and people haven't forgotten that," Luke said.
The first two comedians to perform under the banner of The Metro - 21st century version - are Erica Sigurdson and Dylan Rhymer, both heavy hitters on the Canadian comedy stage. There is some accidental kizmet that comes with them.
"Erica is the first comedian I ever had on stage as a promoter," said Luke. "When I started out the first time, she was the opening act of the first-ever standup show I'd ever done. It's kind of cool to have her be on the first ticket on the Metro comeback."
Sigurdson has amassed a whopping 27 appearances on the hit CBC Radio program The Debaters. She was the focus of five television specials in 2013 alone. She and fellow comedian/actor/writer Peter Kelamis were hired to write the dialogue for the 2006 Gemini Awards, which was such a hit they won the 2007 Leo Award (for B.C. screen arts) for Best Comedy Screenwriting.
Rhymer is a specialist in satirical and hypocrisy-slapping comedy. He was also part of the writing team for the video game Scarface: The World Is Yours in which he voiced the character of Dick Hackney. He was in the cast of TV shows like The Triple Eight, The Dead Zone, and The Stand Up Comedians. He is also an alumnus of The Debaters and a Comedy Now one-hour special for CTV/Comedy Network. In 2014, he was the eventual winner of the People's Champ of Comedy standup event in Vancouver.
Bringing in headliners like Sigurdson and Rhymer for local audiences was a lot of fun in the old days, said Luke, and that will continue to be a big part of his motivation, but something changed in the ensuing years. He can't help but wonder if the first incarnation of the MCC had something to do with it.
"Back then, I really had nobody I could rely on as a local standup comedian. No one," he said. "Now there is a whole community of local comedians who have stage experience, a track record, a set of good original material. I know Nancy O's has done a lot to make that happen and keep comedy in the public eye, and I don't want to compete with that, it's really good for everyone. I went to the Nancy O's guys and said 'look, let me know when you're doing comedy events and as best I can I'll do mine on nights that don't go head to head with yours. I don't want to step on anything they're doing.'"
One of the leaders of the now healthy standup movement locally is Mike McGuire. He gave Luke an option the impresario didn't have back in the initial Metro days: an experienced host. It is McGuire who'll hold the mic to coordinate the night's proceedings when Sigurdson and Rhymer get their spotlight.
The Metro Comedy Circuit opens its doors on that event on Saturday at 8 p.m. (doors open at 7 p.m.). There is a dinner-and-a-show option for $40 or a comedy-only option for $20. Purchase the tickets in advance at the Carmel Restaurant or via the eventbrite.ca online service (there is a link on Facebook at the Metro Comedy Circuit's page).
