The farce is with her

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This article was published 27/12/2014 (4236 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Given the manner in which the past 12 months have unfolded for Aisha Alfa, a happy and prosperous 2015 seems more like a foregone conclusion than a starry-eyed stroke-of-midnight wish.

The Nigerian-born, Winnipeg-raised comedian and actress certainly has had quite a bit to toast and celebrate in 2014 — from appearances on Degrassi and Much’s Video On Trial to a trip to Los Angeles for NBC’s Stand Up for Diversity showcase to earning a spot in Second City’s Bob Curry Fellowship Program and joining the cast of Air Farce for the storied Canadian comedy troupe’s annual New Year’s Eve special (which airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CBC).

Combine that with a festive-season return to her hometown for a couple of headlining standup-comedy gigs — including a pair of shows tonight at Rumor’s Comedy Club (7:15 p.m. and 10 p.m.; tickets $17 at Rumor’s) — and it seems like Alfa has all the elements in place for an exciting new year ahead.

“I had some major goals I’d set for myself in 2014, and I met a lot of them,” Alfa explains. “It’s kind of mind-blowing — you set these lofty goals, and then sometimes, if you really work towards them and let things happen organically, they can actually happen.

“I wrote a note to my agents, listing all the things I’m grateful for and thanking them for the hard work, and even they were like, ‘Wow! This is a great list — we kind of forgot that this all happened in the last year.'”

It all seemed a bit improbable when Alfa first began dabbling in standup comedy half a decade ago as a member of Winnipeg’s burgeoning community of young and ambitious open-mike up-and-comers.

A former life coach, aspiring actress and erstwhile host of the Winnipeg Free Press’s lifestyle-focused digital TV channel, WFPtv, Alfa was the 2011 winner of Rumor’s Comedy Club’s annual Funniest Person With a Day Job contest.

After a couple of years spent solidifying her status on the city comedy scene, she decided it was time to try her luck in Toronto. For several months, she split her time between cities as she sought out gigs in the Big Smoke while travelling back to fulfil comedy commitments in Winnipeg.

For the past 18 months, however, Toronto has been home. Alfa says being a new face in a much bigger metropolis has allowed her comedy to evolve in a very constructive way.

“Moving to Toronto, I’ve become a lot more anonymous, which has been brilliant for my creativity,” she explains. “I don’t have to worry that if I do a joke and it doesn’t go well, everyone will go, ‘Oh, that’s Aisha.’ In Winnipeg, everybody knows everybody, and word spreads quickly.

“In Winnipeg, my face was on billboards for some time, and I had a certain image — ‘Hey, it’s the clean-cut WFPtv girl’ — which was true in some ways, but I feel like now I’m able to do comedy in a more real and authentic way.”

She credits a bad breakup about a year ago for pushing her comedy to a more honest place.

“Before, I used to do a lot more ‘canned’ jokes — they were jokes I had written, but they were very superficial,” she recalls.

“When I went through the breakup, I just wanted to cry all the time, but it was like, ‘I have to go onstage now?’ And sometimes I would do sets at shows where I would just talk about how I really felt, and it would be funny because these are things that everyone has been through… Maybe it’s a bit more risqué than what I used to say onstage, but it’s a lot more real. I think people are seeing the real Aisha Alfa coming through.”

As a regular on Toronto’s comedy scene, Alfa has participated in several showcases organized by TV producers in search of new comedy talent. One such event led to a meeting with writers from Air Farce, and what Alfa thought was a one-off gig to appear in a pre-taped sketch or two turned into an invitation to join the cast for the upcoming New Year’s Eve special.

“When we did the pre-taped sketches, I was surprised that I had big roles in them, which was great of course, but then they said they wanted me there for the live show (tapings) as well,” she says.

“All of a sudden, I’m part of the cast doing photos and promotional stuff with (Second City alumnus) Darryl Hinds, who also joined the cast. It’s so great — all along the way, I had no clue that they were adding me to the cast, and suddenly I’ve got my own personal dressing room with my name on the door, and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, did I just become a cast member of Air Farce without even realizing it?’

“It was a really cool experience.”

 

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @BradOswald