Musing on Ottawa's comedy scene

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on November 9th, 2007

Here’s a reasoned opinion piece on the recent change in venue of a monthly comedy night in Ottawa. The monthly show, on the University of Ottawa campus, featured “unconventional stuff that may involve props, physical movement, or experimental… more intelligent humour that the mainstream crowd just simply would not understand.”

In “Sticking up for stand up,” Tina Hassannia, writing in the University’s student paper, The Fulcrum, examines the reasons for the location swap from 1848 to the Royal Oak.

Jason Collard, 1848’s bar manager, said he cancelled the monthly show because of negative feedback he received from patrons, and also that it was a business decision to focus more efforts on building the campus bar’s business. Fair enough. Organizer Trevor Thompson has been able to move the event to the nearby Royal Oak at 161 Laurier Ave., so the show will go on.

The rest is an interesting snapshot of the comedy market in Canada’s fourth largest urban area.

(We emphasize that it was probably “negative feedback” that forced the move. And, since it was a “campus bar,” it’s very possible that the negative feedback came from… students? It’s not a slam dunk that college students dig the alternative comedy… or comedy in general.)

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