Ex-reporter has news for you: Life isn't fair but it's funny

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Maureen Langan

THE TV news biz’s loss was the standup world’s gain

Nearly a decade and a half ago, Maureen Langan was a New York-based broadcast journalist, covering current events for the Bloomberg news service with all the curiosity and determination a young reporter needs to have.

Then the service veered into a solely business focus; the news game started to change, and Langan decided it was time to try another career direction.

"I was a journalist because I had questions," Langan says during a recent telephone interview from her home in the Big Apple. "Now, really, all you need is cleavage -- and I had that, too, but that's not how I was looking to get ahead.

"When they went all-business, they brought me in and told me I could start doing reports about retirement funds, and I literally said that I'd rather stick pins in my eyes. I stayed six more months, they treated me very well financially, and then I left and started doing standup."

She started out doing comedy at night and banking the money from her day job, but within a year, she had made the leap into full-time standup performing. As she started developing her comedy style, the instincts Langan had developed as a reporter led her to build her jokes around the absurd unfairness that exists in 21st-century society.

"I was raised by an Irish mother and a garbageman father, and I was told that if I worked hard, got educated and did the right thing, life would reward me," she said. "And now, I say that's bullshit -- life is rewarding Paris Hilton, the Kardashians and those freaks on Jersey Shore.

"One of the jokes I use in my act is that I feel a lot like Canada -- I have so much to offer, but nobody gives a crap."

This week, Canada has a lot of Maureen Langan to offer, in the form of a full schedule of performances during the Winnipeg Comedy Festival.

In addition to taking part in Tuesday's Comedy Aces show at McPhillips Street Station at 8 p.m. (hosted by John Wing and featuring Langan, Sean Cullen, Claire Brosseau, Dan Licoppe, Nikki Payne and Big Daddy Tazz; tickets $22 at Ticketmaster), Langan will also be the headliner at Rumor's Comedy Club on Thursday, will contribute to Friday's early Misfortune Tellers gala at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre, will expose some of her edgier material during Saturday's late-night Dark and Stormy Show at the Gas Station Theatre, and has a spot in Sunday's Best of the Fest gala at the Pantages Playhouse.

Having taken her act north before, to the Halifax Comedy Festival, Langan said she's excited about returning to Canada for another fest-flavoured experience.

"I love it," she said. "Down here (in New York), sometimes I feel like I'm just one drink away from an AA meeting with these (comedians)," she laughed. "But when I did the Halifax festival, I was completely taken with how pleasant and supportive and lovely the comics were. I had never performed for Canadian television, and the other comics were so supportive -- they'd watch your set, and they were gracious, and not 'too cool for the room,' and so friendly.

"Everybody was terrific. I'm really looking forward to this."

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 31, 2011 E10