Great Scott!

Thursday night, I was at the Comedy Bar for a special show. For $5, about 40 people filled the cabaret room to see Scott Thompson (Kids In The Hall) try out new material for his stand-up show called Trigger Warning. Any worries that it might be hit-and-miss or rough were allayed since Thompson is a veteran performer.

Without giving too much away, all the material was a recounting (perhaps with some slight exaggeration for effect) of various moments in Thompson's life. Even the choice of his name, apparently there are several Scott Thompsons in show business, was fodder for several hilarious jokes. What made this sort of observational humour effective, since most stand-ups also do this, was the sense that these stories were personally revelatory. So instead of some shallow anecdote told in service of a punch line, it was like listening to particularly humorous friend (without much boundaries) tell you what's been going on in his life.

So were there trigger warnings? Given his persona as a rather outspoken gay man, there were certainly many sex-related stories. The "offensive" statements were usually quick Buddy Cole-esque one-off, designed to get a quick he-didn't-just-say-that groan (as previously stated: "no boundaries") instead of some elaborate rant calculated to shock people or push buttons. Thompson was no white comedian delivering "truth bombs" and "telling it like it is".

I found the show funny throughout and so did most people. But I noticed that for the younger 20-something in the crowd, there were more quiet stretches or lulls. Perhaps the wild, hedonistic antics of a 52-year-old gay man were harder to grok for the carefully-raised Millennial set; at one point, Thompson himself seemed surprised that there were not more cheers for his exhortation for a "wild period" in your life.