Comedy Country, now in its 11th year, has launched a brand new series at the Cape, a monthly mid-week showcase of local and visiting improv and standup acts.

The mid-week booking is by design, meant to attract locals and those in the know. The setting is perfect: the CAPE’s cool, dark Odyssey Ballroom has an underground club atmosphere that feels especially conducive to the risk-taking and shared feeling inspired by good comedy.

“The concept for this thing is let’s do something for us,” said Paul Snepsts, creator of Comedy County. 

“Yes, it’s summertime, yes, there’s visitors around, yes there’s lots of tourism activity going on but let’s do a thing that’s mid-week, off-peak, and let’s try to keep it going all year round.” 

The July 9th show was hosted by Gavin North of Short Attention Spa. A bee keeper by day, Mr. North warmed up the crowd by announcing that he’d be telling his bee jokes because he “left his A jokes at home.” 

The shared laughs — and groans — created an extended dinner party feel: comfortable, convivial, ready for a second serving. 

Opening sets from Mr. North and three other local standups, Vic Armstrong, Julianne Snepsts, and Lenny Epstein, the other half of Short Attention Spa, were great.

While each performer had their own style and persona, a common through line was bodies: how they work, how they look, what comes out of them. 

“We trained them in toilet humour,” Mr. Snepsts said at the intermission. 

Chestnuts, a Montreal improv comedy duo of Vinny Francois and Katie Pagnucco, led the second half of the show.

Their formal conceit was to perform a movie, retrieved out of a vintage copy of Leonard Matlin’s Movie Guide, which features the critic’s one-line description of thousands of films. Chestnuts asked the audience to choose a number between one and 1,500 to determine the page number from which they would select a film. 

Barely stopping for a moment to think, they launched into a completely improvised version of A Little Princess, the 1995 Alfonso Cuaron film about a young girl who is sent to a strict boarding school when her father goes to fight in World War One. 

A beloved classic for girls brought up in the nineties, the movie is still unknown to many, giving the performers runway to take risks and devise a completely off-beat rendition of the basic plot. 

Though the piece was created on the spot, it formed into an impressive three-act structure. Over the course of its beginning, middle and end, set ups were capped by payoffs, comic reversals abounded. There was even a bit of toilet humour. 

The show takes place every second Wednesday of the month through the end of the year.  The next Comedy Country at the CAPE is August 13 and features The Understudies joined by three local comics: Marc Newberry, Sierra Simmertush, and Sean MacFayden.