Like many of Edmonton comics, JAMES WYNTERS entered the scene through PAUL SVEEN's comedy class (one of his classmates was MARK SALAMANDICK). His first set was at Yuk Yuks Londonderry Mall location in the early 2000s. Touring headliners performed seminars before amateur night shows; James remembers RUSSELL PETERS giving five minutes of advice, saying "That's all I got," and spending the rest of the hour taking questions. James shared a stage with BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT at The Comic Strip, but he remembers many less glamorous nights at open mics like the BRIAN HEGGE-run Livewire and an open stage at a biker hangout on Calgary Trail that lasted one night. "We were forced to do the show outside on the patio," James remembers. "A small group of unenthusiastic patrons barely paid attention until the host started singing Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" and tried to get them to sing along." Says Wynters, "I'm surprised we made it out of t...
STERLING SCOTT reminded me of this room, which ran in the summer of 2007 out in St Albert and was run by BARBARA MAY. It was not a great room, made harder by the fact most nights the host would be getting progressively drunker and doing more and more time between acts with less and less coherency as the night went on. It was a good idea to try and be up early. I got to know JEFF NEESER a little bit at this show; he was a regular attendee and would often drive me home. I also started to develop my spontaneity on this stage. There was no value in doing prepared material, so I committed myself to going up with nothing and winging it.
I asked Vancouver comic KEVIN FOX to contribute an Edmonton memory. A nationally touring headliner, Kevin has done almost everything there is to do in Canadian comedy including his own one-hour special for CTV and The Comedy Network and performances performances for Madly Off in All Directions on CBC Radio, the Halifax Comedy Festival, Comedy at Club 54, Just for Laughs and the Global Comedy Festival. This is his story, which BILL COWEN remembers as taking place in June or July of 1999. " I was headlining Yuks on Bourbon St at West Ed Mall. I was about 25 minutes into my hour set when, reason unbeknownst to me, I felt like I had immediately lost like half the audience. What I didn't know is a gentleman had fallen backwards in his chair and was suffering a major cardiac event. He was having a major heart attack. Right there. Right now. Of course I didn't realize this in the moment, I was just curious how I went from crushing to indifference in a matter of seconds? The man...
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