On stage and off, Gavin Stephens is doing it all bass-ackwards. For starters, who the deuce moves further downtown — out of the suburbs — as they get older?

The guy's 33, started in Malvern and as of this month has zigzagged his way to the heart of Queen West — deepest, darkest hipster territory. Dude, you're going the wrong way.

Stephens, who happened to be partway through packing everything he owns into a Pontiac Vibe when I phoned, conceded with a laugh. 

"I've been hating on Queen for a while, but it's gentrified now," he says approvingly. "It's like a shopping mall."

(True, though to borrow a line from The Simpsons, most people mutter that last part.)

And yet, the move mirrors a change in his act that, since his stint on Comedy Inc. came to an end, has seen him step back from the prefab laughs of the now-canceled CTV series to do something a little more street and a lot less scripted. Also a backwards move, if you accept that over the course of a career comics often drift into, not out of, safe material.

"I didn't know I had so many suicide jokes," he remarks, to say nothing of the stuff about HIV and pedophilia.

It started with an impromptu spot last fall at Yuk Yuk's, where for the first time in a long while Stephens says he just played with the crowd for 20 minutes, getting laughs and some uncomfortable silences with off-the-top-of-his-head gags about racial stereotypes and the fake brick on the club's walls. (You can find it on YouTube.) It's the kind of material he used to do, before Comedy Inc., when as a rookie he was turned onto unpredictable late greats like his idol Lenny Bruce and Sam Kinison.

"I started doing that, and it became my voice," says Stephens. "When I got back to it again I realized I loved it."



The point was driven home by a recent stint in the U.K. where one-man shows — the like of which he's bringing this week to Comedy Bar — don't take the same backseat to traditional stand-up as they do over here.

"I've gone full circle with what I love about stand-up and comedy. I love playing with the audience. I want to have fun with them."

Directed by Sandra Battaglini, the new show, Spectacular! Spectacular! is meant to be a mould-breaking mushing together of stand-up, improv and goofing on the audience, says Stephens, not unlike his own sense of humor which is an uncommon mix of the nerdy and the grim. "Cartoon dark," he calls it. Stan Lee meets Bill Hicks.

"I get annoyed with comedy sometimes, because it's like we're back in the 1980s doing material about airline food," says Stephens, throwing in a dig at Dane Cook for good measure.

He talks eagerly — if self-consciously — about the need for comedy to be true to life. "We live in a time of pain and death but everyone acts like we should be happy. I think we need pain and death in our entertainment."

Even still, he adds, "sounds a little preachy."

BEST BETS
Bruce Horak brings his one-man Summerworks hit This is Cancer back for one-night at Comedy Bar, putting a funny face on malignant tumors in support of the Canadian Cancer Society. (So go ahead — it's OK to laugh.) Oct 8. 8pm (doors) 9pm (show). $20, 945 Bloor W.

Improv troupe extraordinaire Slap Happy have been together ten years and, to mark their aluminum anniversary, they play Bad Dog Theatre Oct 10 and 17 — this despite Kerry Griffin being tied up with the Second City mainstage these days. “Kerry has a hard time saying 'no' to people.  We’re glad he didn’t start now,” says Slap Happy co-founder Dave Pearce in a release. With special guest Wordburglar. 10pm. $10. 138 Danforth Ave. www.baddogtheatre.com.