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Two comedy kings go head-to-head this week, but they’ll be delivering jokes, not jabs
There’s a standup showdown in Winnipeg this week and, as strange as it might sound, it’s the guy who stands five feet four inches tall and weighs 140 pounds who ranks as the undisputed comedy heavyweight in the matchup of mirth-making monologists.
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There’s a standup showdown in Winnipeg this week and, as strange as it might sound, it’s the guy who stands five feet four inches tall and weighs 140 pounds who ranks as the undisputed comedy heavyweight in the matchup of mirth-making monologists.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/11/2015 (3975 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
There’s a standup showdown in Winnipeg this week and, as strange as it might sound, it’s the guy who stands five feet four inches tall and weighs 140 pounds who ranks as the undisputed comedy heavyweight in the matchup of mirth-making monologists.
Kevin Hart, arguably the hottest comedy act on the planet these days, brings his What Now? tour to the MTS Centre on Thursday night at 7 p.m. (tickets range from $49.50 to $125, with only a limited number of seats available); last spring, Billboard magazine predicted Hart’s current road odyssey would become the highest-grossing comedy tour in history.
Meanwhile, Australian-born performer Jim Jefferies is unleashing a one-two punch of his profane and politically incorrect brand of humour in a pair of shows at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre (Wednesday and Thursday at 8 p.m.; tickets are $47.50; Thursday’s show is sold out and a limited number of seats are available for Wednesday’s event).
Jefferies had the advantage of a significant head start in the lead-up to this week’s jocular jab-off — tickets for his show(s) went on sale last April, while Hart’s tour-stop announcement and on-sale date for tickets didn’t arrive until late September. Jefferies’ first (Thursday) show sold out quickly, and a second (Wednesday) show was added. Tickets for Hart’s event also sold briskly after going on sale on Sept. 25; a second (10 p.m.) performance was announced, but that show was subsequently cancelled.
So this is it: one city, two comics, three shows. Let’s call it a ’Peg City Punch(line)-Off, or a River City Rumble (of laughter), or, if you prefer, a Flatland Funny-Fellow Faceoff.
Whatever the case, here’s the Tale of the Rib-Tickling Tape:
Jim Jefferies
Jim Jefferies
Born: Geoff James Nugent
Hometown: Perth, Australia
Current tour: Freedumb
In Winnipeg: Wednesday and Thursday (sold out) at Pantages Playhouse Theatre; tickets $47.50 at Ticketmaster
Age: 38
Height: 5-8
Tale of the tweets: 218,600 followers (@jimjefferies)
Social media slogan: “I think it’s funny. But it’s not for everyone.”
Technique/style: Irreverent, frequently profanity-laden, politically incorrect, inclined toward bluntly worded rants on such hot-button issues as religion, sexual politics, substance abuse and gun control.
Career highlights: Was attacked onstage while performing at the Manchester Comedy Store in 2007; became the first Australian to have his own HBO comedy special in 2009; created and starred in the FX-network comedy series Legit, which ran for two seasons (2013-14).
Knockout punch(line): “I’m not racist; I’m a bigot — it’s completely different.”
Kevin Hart
Kevin Hart
Born: Kevin Darnell Hart
Hometown: Philadelphia, Pa.
Current tour: What Now?
In Winnipeg: Thursday at 7 p.m., MTS Centre; tickets $49.50 to $125 at Ticketmaster, with only limited seats still available.
Age: 36
Height: 5-4
Tale of the tweets: 22.8 million followers (@KevinHart4real)
Social media slogan: “Everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to do the work.”
Technique/style: Self-deprecating reflections on life and relationships, with frequent references to his diminutive stature.
Career highlights: After seeing him perform standup in 2002, Judd Apatow cast Hart in the short-lived Fox sitcom Undeclared; subsequent to that, he landed roles in Scary Movie, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Little Fockers and The Five-Year Engagement. Co-created and starred in the made-for-cable comedy Real Husbands of Hollywood, and more recently has starred in The Wedding Ringer, Ride Along, About Last Night and Get Hard. Known for his relentless work ethic, maintaining a high-profile social-media presence, and for often leading “pop-up” 5K runs in cities in which he’s performing.
Knockout punch(line): “I’m a grown little man, for God’s sake!”
David Sanderson9 minute readYesterday at 2:00 AM CDT
Good news if you were used to having your morning coffee with Terri Gale, who earlier this summer signed off from CTV Your Morning, after 15 years on the job.
Gale, the three-hour program’s longtime weather expert, and her husband Rob Gale, the ex-head soccer coach of Valour FC and co-founder of the Northern Super League’s new Winnipeg franchise, are the owners of Golden Hour Café and Bar at 775 Corydon Ave.
Gale (formerly Apostle) nods when she is asked who would know more about caffeinated beverages than a person who, for the last decade and a half, set her alarm to go off in the wee small hours.
“I do love coffee and take mine black. Except because I hate burning my tongue — not a good thing when you speak for a living — I got into the habit of throwing a couple of ice cubes in my cup, to be on the safe side,” Gale says, seated on the second level of their attractive, 2,100-square-foot premises, which officially opened in mid-September.
Morgan Modjeski6 minute readYesterday at 8:39 PM CDT
As Miki Stewart gathered with her family at the Japanese Cultural Association of Manitoba on Saturday afternoon, she was thinking of her parents, Yoshimaru and Yoshi Abe.
Both Stewart, 80, and her sister Yumi Falk, 81, alongside an older brother, were born in the Tashme internment camp in British Columbia. They were among more than 2,600 Japanese Canadians who were forcefully removed and interred at the camp following the bombing of Pearl Harbour and Canada’s declaration of war on Japan in 1941.
“They didn’t talk much about how they suffered,” Stewart said of her parents. “But they did.”
She was amongst a group of more than 150 people who gathered at the association’s McPhillips headquarters on Saturday afternoon to watch the unveiling of the Japanese Canadian Monument in Victoria B.C.
From the tender age of eight, actress Summer Howell has made her presence known in a series of horror films shot in her home province of Manitoba.
Her first film was Curse of Chucky (2013), director Don Mancini’s continuation of the venerable killer doll series he started (as a screenwriter) in 1988 with Child’s Play.
“Even then, it was obvious she was very talented, intelligent and delightful,” Mancini said of Howell.
Though she has worked in other genres, Howell gravitated to horror repeatedly, with credits in Shawn Linden’s harrowing Hunter Hunter (2020) and the 2023 possession thriller All Fun and Games. Earlier this year, she shot the horror film Sundown in Winnipeg with director Rebekah McKendry, which premièred last week at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles and is headed for a streaming berth on Shudder.
The heroic true tale of Norway House Cree Nation-born Jordan River Anderson came home Friday night, as Manitoba Theatre for Young People presented Yvette Nolan’s Jordan.
The touring production, a collaboration with Geordie Theatre, runs weekends through Oct. 11, with additional stops in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa’s National Arts Centre.
Having several of Anderson’s family members witness the local première underscored the evening with poignancy. Elder and Pine Creek First Nation member Barbara Nepinak added her own dignified presence and prayers following MTYP artistic director Pablo Felices-Luna’s welcoming remarks.
The season-opener also marks the Winnipeg-raised playwright’s homecoming; the Algonquin playwright, director, dramaturg, actor and educator was a fixture in our local theatre community for many years before going on to serve as artistic director for Native Earth Performing Arts from 2003 to ‘11, among other contributions.
In the weeks leading up to the civic election, Scott Gillingham has been performing a juggling act: he’s running to be Winnipeg’s 45th mayor, while still serving as its 44th.
“If someone asks me about the campaign, I’m going to answer them. But I think for most people, I’m the mayor of Winnipeg, even if I’m showing up as a candidate,” Gillingham, 58, says. “I try to do all I can to maintain that distinction.”
The Free Press joined Gillingham on a recent rainy September Saturday on the campaign trail, where he served in both roles during an event-laden day. City council’s final meeting before the Oct. 28 election was days earlier.
In Winnipeg, it’s rare for an incumbent to be defeated. But Gillingham knows his win in 2022 wasn’t exactly a landslide — he won with 27.5 per cent of the vote — and he’s been thinking about his second term ever since.
