Tuesday October 1st 2002
Open Mic Night
Tuesday nights are the regular open mic night, where guitar players and singers get up and play while the audience listen and sip thier drinks. Well, this night was a little different. Eight comics were featured on the bill! Mike Van Holst started the night with a great intro, and he also sang a song from his TV Show "Channel Surfing". It was great!
The students were up next! There was Pankaj Seth, Craig Munns, Gary Wood, Dean Cherry, Igloo Harras, and Pete Styler. (Student Dawson Roes sat the night out as he wasn't ready for the stage). The night was wrapped up by local comedian Andrew McLeod, who did a very funny routine!
Pankaj Seth is of East Indian origin, and this helped his great set about a trip to the Calgary Stampede and a certain prize he won! Craig Munns is a blue collar factory guy, and his set was based on London Transit and Factory Life. Gary Wood was the mature student in the class, and he had a great set all about being "The Trailer Park Guy". Dean Cherry is an 18 year old comic who really enjoys the writing part. His set included a bit on Bank Machines.
Igloo was up next, he was introduced as "Tom Ryerson", and then introduced himself as "Amarynceus Glasse". His eight minute set went over some-what mildly, as Igloo may have gone a little quick inbetween jokes, and didn't give the audience time to react fully. He got a couple of laffs, but they were far and few between. Next time Igloo returns to London Corners, he will go up as himself, just like at the Good Time Charlies gig back in June '02. Igloo needs to spend a little more time on who he is as a comic.
After Igloo, Pete Styler got up and showed everybody how it was done. He had the entire bar howling for 10 minutes. His debut was every comics dream, laff after laff. Pete ranted about the City of London, our P.M., and bathrooms in Ritzy hotels. He was also able to ad lib excellently, and he will be remembered as the shining star of the class.
After Pete, Mike Van Holst introduced a comic who has been at it for about a year. Andrew McLeod was professional and funny, and also a fan of a couple comics that Dean Cherry also knows very well.
As Igloo's 12th career gig, he really needs to start to focus what he wants to do, he can't keep coming up flat. His London debut was no Niagara Falls, but it wasn't as good as his Good Time Charlies debut on June 18th.
Igloo wanted to suggest to his Komedy Klass-mates that they work together as the "Forest City Funny Guys", as there is always strength in numbers! But it's been hard to get everybody together to work on material.
Incidently, Dean Cherry returned to London Corners the next 4 weeks, and honed his act. Dean's last gig there was on Oct 29th. Afterwards, the London Corner's Bar & Grill was turned into the London Corners Variety Store!
Dean was recently assisting Igloo with material for his March 28th gig in Woodstock, Igloo needed the input of another comedian for some of his jokes. It was nice to work with Dean again, and Igloo hopes to continue to colaborate with this young talented comedian!