A Toronto comedian whose body was found in a burned-out home in St. Thomas, Ont., briefly hosted an Internet comedy show based on his exploits outside Toronto nightclubs. Police say the death of Jason David Farro, 40, is being treated as a homicide after an autopsy determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma. Mr. Farro, a stand-up comedian, was in the city visiting friends. Constable Cam Constable says no one is in custody, and police are not commenting on possible suspects. Mr. Farro w... [Read More]

With a show entitled “Stripped”, one might expect Eddie Izzard’s current show – which he’s toured with for exactly 2 years – to cover some sexy topics. But what Izzard unleashed on the April 30 crowd at Massey Hall (his first of four shows) was the history of the world, covering “everything that’s ever happened, along with a few gaps because it’ll be a long show.” [Read More]

Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson gathered in the atrium of the CBC building in Toronto for a Q&A moderated by Jian Ghomeshi. Well, more of a Q & A & A & tangent & talk-over-each-other marathon of silliness. [Read More]

See Todd Barry. See Todd Barry come to Toronto. See Todd Barry kill. Kill, Todd, kill. If you're like me - and if you're reading this - you're a pretty jaded comedy fan. I don't laugh a lot, opting more often to sit back and muse "that was very funny". That went completely out the window. At the halfway point, I had to halt consumption of my pint of beer, for fear that it would have come back out the same way it came in. [Read More]

Tim Meadows, Joe Canale, and Molly Erdman (the latter two of Second City Chicago) performed a short set of their own as part of the Comedy Bar's first anniversary celebration week. [Read More]

Tompkins is one of those guys I've appreciated for a good long time, but it only dawned on me last night how accessible he actually is. He's identified as an alternative comic, and certainly his uniqueness and the intelligence of his material fits what seems to be the definition of "alternative". But I would book him in any mainstream club, and I would have no problem sending my parents to the show. If memory serves me, the set was entirely clean, too. How often does a guy that slick get so much... [Read More]

I had the luxury of attending the Toronto Improv Festival every night at Comedy Bar, conveniently located within stumbling-home-drunk distance from my humble abode (I won't lie - that heavily influenced my apartment selection). The place was rockin', good friends were seen (both at the venue and sleeping in my living room), and fantastic improv was performed. And to top it off, I participated in a workshop with the delightful Zach Ward, visiting from North Carolina to co-produce the festival. [Read More]

Jason Mewes (he'd be the "Jay" in Jay & Silent Bob) passed through Toronto last night for An Intimate Evening with Jason Mewes at the Bloor Cinema. It was a smaller than expected crowd - likely not more than 250 - and Toronto, you missed a good time. [Read More]

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), while not being heavy on the comedy fare, does allow us a few delicious morsels by way of the world premiere of the Ricky Gervais film The Invention of Lying on September 14 (he'll be present for it), as well as An Afternoon With Chris Rock that same day. The schedule for the Toronto Improv Festival is now live, so that takes care of my life from Sept 17-27. [Read More]

The yellow journalist in me would like very much to declare an all-out comedy war to have broken out on Bloor St. with a steel cage-match scheduled this Sunday evening pitting improv vs. sketch in no-holds-barred battle that will leave a bloodbath of comedians littering the street. A veritable laugh riot. Unfortunately, the participants don't really want to play along, as things really are a lot more genial. Two weekly comedy shows a TTC stop apart are coming together for a special "Subway Serie... [Read More]