The Irrelevant Show. Centennial Theatre, Thursday, March 23, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $35. For more information visit cbc.ca/radio/irrelevantshow.
There’s not much irrelevant about The Irrelevant Show.
When the CBC radio program comes back to North Vancouver’s Centennial Theatre next Thursday to do a live recording of a new batch of comedy sketches and songs, audiences can expect a wide breadth of different scenes and characters, as well as plenty of hilarity and irreverence.
One moment the audience might be treated to a sketch involving Darth Vader receiving a performance review in a human resources-type setting, the next moment a scene might include a faux advertisement for a product
called Li’l Shouty: The pillow you can scream into.
“It’s just pure silliness,” says Peter Brown, the show’s producer and director.
Brown talks about another sketch called “The Greg Gang,” which from the name alone sounds chock-full of hilarity.
“A bunch of gang leaders and they’re planning a heist and the gang leader’s name is Greg and he’s saying to the rest of the people in the gang, ‘OK, when we get in there, don’t call me Greg, call me Cobra,’” Brown says.
He explains, however, that things don’t go as planned because the other gang members insist that “Cobra” refer to them as “Greg.”
Now entering its seventh season as a regular CBC program, The Irrelevant Show is taking some time away from its native Edmonton to do some out-of-town gigs.
“We do eight recordings a year and two or three of those are out of town,” Brown says. “Edmonton is definitely our home base. It’s where our actors, where our performers are based. But our writers are completely across the country.”
This year, the production is heading to B.C. and tapings are planned for Chilliwack, Duncan, Victoria and, of course, North Vancouver.
On its weekly CBC broadcast, the radio show pulls from material performed throughout the year at its live taping events.
The show satirizes, mocks and jokes about a whole host of topics, including pop culture, Canadian identity and the everyday parts of life that all audiences can relate to.
Calling the show irrelevant is a tough sell.
“The heart of the show is more and more the frustrations that Canadians encounter in their daily lives. We’re aiming for sketches that resonate with the experience of the audience,” Brown says.
The show is made up of some of Canada’s most talented comedians and performers, including Mark Meer, Donovan Workun, Jana O’Connor and Neil Grahn. For the show in North Vancouver, Vancouver actor and comic Amy Shostak will join the cast.
Because The Irrelevant Show is sketch comedy designed for radio, the humour comes from the power of the characters and the words themselves that the actors are saying – it’s not a production overly concerned with action or set pieces.
One thing’s for sure though: you will laugh.
“The actors are so expressive in the sketches and there’s so much banter between the sketches that it does feel like a visual event,” Brown says. “One of the best things about a live taping is what happens between and around the sketches.
Audiences can expect plenty of playful banter, many musical interludes courtesy of a live band, and the night will be hosted by Brown himself.
A preview of a new sketch coming to the North Vancouver show, Brown says, is called “Social Jail,” which is a place where people go for committing offences like talking in an elevator, playing a guitar at a party or coughing directly into a phone.
“The more we can talk about things that people have thought but not talked to each other about the better,” he says.
The Irrelevant Show is one of CBC’s most successful radio comedy programs, with 750,000 people tuning in to hear it every week.
The show promises to be a visual and entertaining treat for the audience. Brown says the production is not overdubbed or heavily edited for the radio, so viewers at the live taping can expect most of the sound effects, banter, and great sketches to occur right before their eyes.
“The show comes from enough different places and addresses, enough different subjects in enough different ways that there’ll be something in it for you whoever you are,” Brown says.
The Irrelevant Show plays Centennial Theatre on Thursday, March 23 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased by visiting nvrc.ca/centennial-theatre/whats-on/irrelevant-show or calling the box office at 604-984-4484.
