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Just for Laughs review: Rory Scovel at Mainline Theatre Monday July 22

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Rory Scovel performs again Tuesday night in Montreal’s Mainline Theatre as part of the Montreal Just for Laughs comedy festival. After interviewing him, I went to the Monday show. Here’s a super quick review of that first of two shows. If you went or are going tonight, tweet your review under the hashtag #mtlfest and it’ll pop up on The Gazette’s new #mtlfest page.

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett

OVERALL – Sometimes, imperfect is the most perfect. And yes, I just qualifed the already absolute “perfect”. Deal.*

HIGHLIGHTS – What I saw at the Scovel set on Monday was perfect comedy. Oh, it was not great. Scovel’s first 15 minutes or so was flat, failing to achieve liftoff, as my travelling companion later put it. But what happened in the final half hour or so of his set was perfect. Instead of just plowing ahead and leaving the audience to figure it out, Scovel did what looked a lot like throwing himself on the mercy of the court, but was in reality the beginning of that night’s courtship. By the time he’d pulled an audience member onto the stage for an absurdly long period of accompaniment as he goofed and pranced through  the rest of his set, he’d kickstarted his stalled momentum and it was a pretty happy crowd. “Fail better” Beckett said. Add to that the words of another great brain on nothing short of the meaning of art and life, EM Forster from Howard’s End: “Only connect.” **

LOWLIGHT – Two things: 1. The Mainline room was  hotter than the fecking sun. 2. Katie Crown opened the show with a couple of longish bits, both of which were unsettling, slow payouts. It was funny strange and funny good, but not as an opening act. I would like to have seen Crown as the middle act of a multi-comic evening. As an opening act, she (and the heat) created a rhythm that even a machine-gun joke machine would have had trouble kick into gear.

More #mtlfest coverage, including your social media and our previews, at montrealgazette.com/mtlfest

dduguay@montrealgazette.com

@tweetinthebox

*This and ** this are the kind of wtf bafflegabbery that is exactly why they don’t let me review comedy the rest of the year.



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