Laugh hard faster: How Halifax ComedyFest stands from the rest

With shows like This Hour Has 22 Minutes, CODCO, Kids in the Hall, there's no denying CBC has been a home for Canadian sketch comedy. As for stand-up? "There wasn't a lot," says Geoff D'eon, producer of Ha!ifax ComedyFest.

Designed to complement the big stars that appear in Montréal's Just For Laughs, Ha!ifax ComedyFest is a festival with a focus on discovering new talent.

"The festival—thanks to Kim [Hendrickson], and Moya [Walsh], and the other people that help book it—is really well-curated," says D'Eon.

"We don't just put anyone on stage. We really research these people."

"We agonize. We scout," says Hendrickson, who produces the festival itself each April in Halifax, which takes over the city in a multi venue production that has been running annually since its re-launch in 1997.

"There's a lot of watching terrible Vimeo links," adds D'Eon.

"You can't get those minutes back," jokes Hendrickson.

"I've got years I can't get back."

Harder, Faster, Funnier

Before the internet, the options for seeing stand-up comedy were limited: on series like Just For Laughs and Ha!ifax ComedyFest, late-night talk shows, and in person for a cover charge and a two-drink minimum.

From gritty phone videos on YouTube to the holy grail of Netflix special, there are now plenty of places for one to experience a set.

"Standards are definitely higher than they used to be," says D'Eon.

Audiences are definitely more sophisticated. There's so much good writing available to people now.- Geoff D'Eon

"Audiences are definitely more sophisticated. There's so much good writing available to people now. On Netflix, on Amazon, on YouTube."

"That's also made our jobs more challenging, because with the internet your attention span is much shorter, and you want to laugh much faster, and you want to laugh hard faster," says Hendrickson.

The artists' jobs, in turn, "have also gotten more challenging: they have to get there harder, faster, funnier."

The Ha!ifax ComedyFest show is put together with "harder, faster, funnier" very much in mind.

"We assemble them in a very fast package, inspired by Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and This Hour Has 22 Minutes," says D'Eon.

"Sometimes a comic gets on stage with a 15-minute set, of which three minutes is really laugh-out-loud funny, and we can use that three minutes."

The new season will feature three minutes—give or take—from Nikki Payne, Derek Edwards, Greg Proops, Peter White, Martha Chaves and Kabir Singh, among others.

"If you watch one episode, you have a sense of what the Ha!ifax ComedyFest is, because it will take you around town," says D'Eon.

The venues include the intimate downtown bars The Lower Deck and The Seahorse Tavern, Casino Nova Scotia's grand ballroom the Schooner Room, and the Spatz Theatre, which hosts nearly 800 soft seats in the city's north end.

"We shoot way more than we need, we pan for the gold nuggets and we just line 'em up in a row and put them on TV."

In 2002, the Halifax series was in turn complemented by the Winnipeg Comedy Festival series.

"The marching orders for the three festivals is they can't look the same," says D'Eon.

"You have to be able to know, when you're watching Winnipeg, 'Oh that's really different from Halifax.' And our format allows us to do that."

"He's sort of ubiquitous"

And your Haligonian guide to all of this is actually a Newfoundlander, Mark Critch.

"He is the funniest person I've ever met," says D'Eon of the show's host.

"Quick, fast, obliging, gracious, a pleasure to work with, a great writer—we couldn't do better."

D'Eon, who worked with Critch as a producer on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, where he worked from 1993 to 2008 ("You get less time for murder," he quips), says the comedian is more than just a host.

"He leads off the galas, he goes to pretty much every show and says hello to the crowd, we shoot bumpers at all of the venues, he gets the energy up in every room," D'Eon says, counting on his fingers.

"He's sort of ubiquitous."

Overall, the show's effect on audiences is one of excitement, discovery and a sense that absolutely anything could happen.

"With the Halifax ComedyFest, the chances are you won't know most of the comedians on the bill. You will never have heard of them," says D'Eon.

"It's a great surprise—when there's someone you've never heard of and they blow the doors off the place."

The 23rd season of Ha!ifax ComedyFest premieres November 14 at 8:30 p.m. ET.