Want to hear something funny, Toronto? For the first time in nine years, we have a comedy festival. And we have arch-rival Montreal to thank for it.
That city's Just For Laughs festival yesterday announced its first spin-off -- the Just For Laughs Toronto Festival, July 26-28, which will see the city hand over Dundas Square and two adjacent city blocks to a comedy street fest. Among the highlights: Howie Mandel, George Lopez and talk-show host Craig Ferguson will be host galas at Roy Thomson Hall. Hometown international star Russell Peters will be playing a free show at Dundas Square on the heels of his sellouts at the Air Canada Centre.
And A-listers like John Pinette, Greg Giraldo, John Mendoza and Ireland's Ardal O'Hanlon will perform. Besides Mandel and Peters, Canadians will be represented by a special performance of the Ethnic Heroes Of Comedy tour, featuring Angelo Tsarouchas and Frank Spadone, plus Jeremy Hotz, Elvira Kurt and Derek Edwards. The $2.
24 million event -- with a $500,000 loan from Toronto city council, $250,000 from Toronto Tourism, $400,000 from the provincial government -- will be literally an extension of the storied Montreal festival, which will wrap up its 25th edition the weekend before. "At first we thought it was a dumb move to have everybody overextended after all the work in Montreal," says JFL president Bruce Hills. "But then it was like 'Why not?
' We're keeping a lot of the acts in the country and redirecting some tours. We felt the time is right, we feel we know the Toronto market well and have been touring shows here for 10 years. "We got guys like Bill Burr and Greg Giraldo who aren't household names unless you're really into comedy, but they're the best and they're paid accordingly.
We've got Frank Skinner, the biggest star in England right now, and Ardal, who's the biggest in Ireland. I want Torontonians to see the elite. I believe there's not a weak act on the bill.
" Toronto had a comedy festival through the '90s, run by Yuk Yuk's with sponsorship money from Molson's, but that event (which in its day featured shows by the likes of Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler) died with the end of the corporate relationship. The "European style" street aspect of the new fest is one which was never embraced by the old one. It's another note lifted from the Montreal fest, which fills the streets of Rue St.
Denis with jugglers, mimes, stilt walkers, magicians and clowns. It'll be a change of mood for Dundas Square, which has a reputation the urban-minded/race-conscious Russell Peters poked at during yesterday's press conference. "If nobody gets shot, it'll be a great day," he said of his concert, which will undoubtedly be absolute madness, crowdwise, "but don't worry.
I have street cred and know all the shooters.
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