A veteran of the comedy scene for 18 years now, Adam Christie, who headlines the Friday, January 24 Best of the Fest show at the upcoming Icebreakers Comedy Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, knows a chilly January night is perfect timing for an evening of laughs.
“The cold Canadian winter is high time for comedy,” Christie says on the line from his Toronto home. “Those are our cash cow months when you want to be doing your best material. Once it gets warmer audiences start heading to patios, and that’s when you develop your new stuff.”
Christie knows about material, too. He’s honed his chops in the writing rooms of smash CBC television shows This Hour Has 22 Minutes and The Baroness von Sketch Show.
“At 22 Minutes, I wrote so much for so long,” he recalls. “There were about a dozen writers a season. Every week we each wrote five sketches, it was like a comedy factory. I wrote things for that show that didn’t get used and sometimes I was able to take them for my own stand-up.”
The 37-year-old who grew up in Cambridge was the proverbial class clown who knew by age 16 he wanted to be a stand-up comic.
“Back then it was like telling someone you wanted to be a swashbuckling pirate,” he jokes, “or a trapeze artist. Nobody could tell me how to go about doing it. I left Cambridge for Toronto when I was 18. I lived in LA for a year and in Halifax when I was writing for 22 Minutes.”
In 2019 he was named the Sirius XM Top Comic at Montreal’s Just For Laughs Festival. His album released that year, General Anxiety Disorder was nominated for Best Comedy Album at the 2020 Juno Awards.
The pandemic, of course, meant that the ceremony was cancelled.
“I had my bags packed and I was supposed to be leaving on March 12,” says Christie. “Just as I got my shirt on I received the email that it wasn’t happening. It was supposed to be in Saskatoon, and I love that city. It was nice to be nominated, though.”
The 6’5” comedian sports a wingspan that would rival Shaquille O’Neal’s. He uses those long arms to great effect in his routine and says he wishes that the Icebreakers Festival would include a pick-up basketball game between the comics.
“There used to be one at the Just for Laughs Festival,” says Christie. “Everyone, even all these famous comics used to play. It was so much fun. But I think someone tore his ACL one year and they stopped doing it.”
“Of course he wants a basketball game,” Icebreakers executive producer and NOTL native Jeff Paul laughs. “He wants to dunk on my 5'8” butt.”
Paul calls Christie “one of the best” while Christie gives his colleague props for being an “ambassador for the Toronto and Ontario comedy scenes, someone who knows everybody and whom everybody likes.”
Christie caps a lineup featuring Ted Morri, Moe Ismail and Fiona O’Brien, all comics returning to the festival for at least a second time in its 11-year run.
“It’s a pretty sought-after festival for those of us in the Toronto community,” says comedian Paul, who runs Icebreakers with his wife Kyra Williams. “Everyone we booked this year is ecstatic to do it. We treat our comics so good; we show them a good time.
That good time includes lunch at the festival’s wine sponsor Ravine Vineyard and a gift of a Sweatsedo, a custom-made velour tracksuit which has become Paul’s own go-to uniform for his stand-up routine.
This year’s Icebreakers Comedy Festival features four shows, beginning with a sold-out opening night at Oast House Brewers MCd by beloved local comic Joe Pillitteri. Letterkenny’s Olivia Stadler and television writer and Canadian Comedy Award winner Jeff McEnery are also on the bill.
Corks Winebar and Eatery hosts two shows on Friday, January 24, the first being the Best of the Fest at 8 p,m. That’s followed by the Meltdown, at 10 p.m. Paul is the MC for that second show, sharing the stage with Nick Burden, Anjelica Scannura and Dan Guiry.
“Expect the unexpected at The Meltdown,” says Paul. “Don’t come to that one if you are easily offended. Dan is so off-the-wall insane that it just can’t be explained. It’s wild to watch. The guy is nuts.”
Icebreakers concludes on Saturday, January 25 with a seven-comic bill for the annual CBC Radio Laugh Out Loud gala at a new venue.
“It’s at the NOTL Community Centre,” Paul explains. “But we’re calling it The Hall at Anderson Lane because nobody wants to see ‘community centre’ on a CBC gala.”
LOL host Ali Hassan is back as the MC for the gala. Drew Behm, Amy Bugg, Patrick Haye, Monica Gross, Patrick Hakeem and Alex Wood round out the lineup.
Tickets are still available for the Friday and Saturday shows at icebreakerscomedy.com.
