This month Toronto will play host to the Toronto Fringe Festival, showcasing over 100 short works by locals and international guests.
Some of these shows will be comedies, although nothing beats the granddaddy of the Fringe Festival, in Edinburgh, for its smorgasbord of comedy. There, you can see over 300 comedy acts in a one-month period. Stars are born, hopes are dashed, but here the stakes are a little more modest.
Graham Clark is a legendary Vancouver stand-up whose new one-man show, I Think Therefore I’m Graham, promises to be a hoot. Also from Vancouver, sketch duo and Canadian Comedy Awards winners Peter and Chris are a perennial Fringe favourite, and their new show, Peter and Chris and the Kinda OK Corral, will not disappoint fans of the absurd.
But the show I’m most looking forward to is Briane Nasimok’s Confessions of an Operatic Mute. Between college and his real career in comedy, Nasimok performed as a non-speaking extra in more than 250 performances of the Canadian Opera Company. The stories he tells are interwoven with stories of his family and love life, which are colourful, even operatic, to say the least.
This is a show that Nasimok has been threatening to perform for decades and only now will see the light of day, er, night. But who, you may ask, is Briane Nasimok?
Nasimok is a midtown Toronto resident who attended Forest Hill Collegiate when I went there in the ’60s. Every high school has a few funny guys, and Nasimok was one of them. Determined not to have a career in his uncle’s sheet metal and roofing business, Nasimok managed to earn a living in Toronto comedy and show business by learning to do everything.
Nasimok shows up in a remarkable number of places. He was visible in the fledgling stand-up scene of the late ’70s and was, in fact, the project manager for the first Yuk Yuk’s. I talk a good game, but the thing about Briane is that he actually gets things done, which has made him valuable to a bevy of producers over the decades.
As a comedy writer, he’s been everywhere. Gags for awards shows, shtick for stars, a lot of behind the scenes stuff that goes unnoticed but needs to be done. Ever wonder who writes the TV commentary for the Santa Claus parade? Nasimok. But he also writes and produces the Siminovitch Prize Awards.
When the Gilda’s Club gala, It’s Always Something, was in trouble a few years back, they turned the reins over to Nasimok to reinvigorate the franchise. Same thing with the Canadian Comedy Awards.
I think back to his stand-up in the ’70s when his preferred role was as host. His persona was the fun camp counsellor everyone wanted but nobody had. But just as important was the generosity of spirit he gave to his fellow comedians. It’s a spirit that some would say is missing in today’s comedy scene. Currently, Nasimok does a lot of charity-based producing. His latest venture is to head up Smile Theatre, which brings musicals to retirement homes and rehabilitation facilities.
The show is really not about opera at all, but about a life lived just a little off-centre, not in the shadows, not in the limelight, a delightful tribute to the joys of eccentricity.
Post City Magazines’ humour columnist, Mark Breslin, is the founder of Yuk Yuk’s comedy clubs and the author of several books, including Control Freaked.
