Add up the songs, the videos and their almost supernatural timing and it's easy to see why Last Call Cleveland took the top prize at last year's Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival.
Easy, but a little surprising just the same. Nothing against the Forest City, but it isn't exactly famous for turning out top comic talent — or much of anything beyond post-industrial malaise, if we take the troupe's faux tourism video at its word.
"See our river that catches on fire," they sing happily. "It's so polluted that all our fish have AIDS ... Buy a house for the price of a VCR."
Last Call's own site notes that the foursome of Aaron McBride, Mike Polk, Matt Zitelli and Mark McKenzie are "one of Cleveland's two sketch comedy troupes." So any accolades they get on their home turf should be taken with a grain of salt. Meanwhile, we're left to wonder how, while working in such a vacuum, they got so good?
The troupe was back in town on Friday for the festival's Best of the Fest Encore Show, a bill filled out by locals Accidental Company and Haircut. Accidental's Brian Crosby and Jordan Kennedy made good on their promise to chow down on sticks of butter, but the stunt that marks their commercial for "Butter Fatties" snack food takes a backseat to more artfully penned bits like the teacher-and-student sketch I'm going to guess is called "Wordplay." Crosby also has a wry one-manner as a successful writer who failed at life. "Chapter one," he intones, reading from his autobiography with full authorial gravitas, "Opportunities Missed."
But for one character bit, and a beautifully timed two-hander on the cliches of stand-up comedy, Last Call Cleveland kept all four of its highly versatile gang on deck during its set at Second City, alternating between musical numbers, video and more traditional sketches. Lesser comics would not do as well with that bit about baby shaking, which is hung on the age-old premise of a frustrated teacher facing dim-witted students. Likewise, the joke underlying their "One Semester of Spanish Love Song" is an old one, but it works all over again thanks to the aching, mariachi-esque delivery of Mike Polk.
Monkey Toast host David Shore (right) with guest Jaymz Bee
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Talk of the town: Time is running out to catch Monkey Toast — on this continent, at least. The improvised talk show, a must-see of the local scene for the past seven years, is relocating to the UK and will stage its final Toronto episodes this month and next, wrapping on May 1.
Host/creator David Shore is following his wife over the pond, and has a feeling his show will click with the stage-mad Brits. "I realized I would be an idiot not to move there," he says, recalling a recent trip. "In the UK, people go out every night to theatre and comedy… and are happy to pay."
Mind, they're also harder to please. "There's certainly a lot more heckling," he notes. "I've been warned."
Shore's guests this week are John Pattison (Puppets Who Kill) and Karen Dales, author of the vampire novel Angel of Death.
"So I'll be dressed as a 14 year-old girl," Shore deadpans.
The next Monkey Toast is Saturday, March 13. Comedy Bar, 945 Bloor W. 647-898-5324. $10
Sean Davidson's Comedy column appears every Wednesday. Email him at sdavidson@eyeweekly.com.