Sketchy Broads: Choosing the Bear is a sketch-comedy show written by five local multidisciplinary comedians: Nikki Hulowski, Lindsay Walker, Kristen Welker, Jules Balluffi, performers, and Jennie Emms, who is in the booth as stage manager and appears in one cameo bit. My favourite sketch comedy shows are the ones with so many funny bits that they don’t linger on any of them, just – punchline! boom – and then a lighting shift and segue into a different scenario with different characters. Sketchy Broads did this very well. There were some sketches in which they performed male characters, and some in which they were women dealing with men (offstage or onstage). There was also one very funny small child character. There was laugh-out-loud silliness, there was a recurring bit about a har-har eavesdropper taking conversation out of context, and there was a surprisingly-poignant scene set at an anti-feminist convention.

Let’s Go to the Phones is an improvised radio call-in show by the Irrelevant Show crowd, in the Spotlight Cabaret restaurant. The performance I saw had Peter Brown hosting and familiar comedian/improvisers Cody Porter, Dave Clarke, Donovan Workun, and Chris Borger alternating as guest experts and circulating through the audience with microphones for the questions. Peter Brown started by getting topics from the audience, as mundane as possible, and the ones we ended up with were “how to pair your bluetooth devices” and “coffee grounds”. The pace of this kind of show is slower, giving the performers opportunities for developing odd characters and successfully recreating the call-in show atmosphere.

Yesterday I also watched Keith Brown’s magic show 100% Wizard. The magic / illusions were impressive and mysterious, and Keith Brown connects with audiences in a relaxed and respectful way. He used lots of audience volunteers, including some younger ones. I don’t think he did any of the same things he’s done in previous shows – and if he did, I didn’t mind. With use of the large monitors on either side of the stage to enhance the audience view, and one video camera for a closeup of his hands in some bits, the performance worked very well for the large cabaret-seating room of the Sea Change Granite Club venue which is also hosting the Late Night Cabaret this year.