'Two different machines': 22 Minutes vs. standup according to Mark Critch and Trent McClellan

CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes stars Mark Critch and Trent McClellan are veterans in the Canadian comedy sphere. They've done everything from live performances to hosting to writing for and, of course, starring in 22 Minutes — where they've done sketches and interviewed politicians, musicians and many prominents personalities. 

But how different is it working on 22 Minutes versus performing standup, live on-stage? Here's what they had to say.

"They're kind of two different machines," says Trent McClellan. 

"For 22 Minutes, we tape the show on a Monday night, Tuesday we start writing again, Wednesday we read what we wrote, Thursday and Friday we're shooting it," adds Mark Critch.

"The jokes that we do [there] are desk jokes that are really quick. It's like, here's a topic and here's the punchline," explains McClellan.

"We don't have the luxury of time because we have to put something out every single week and we don't really get a chance to try it a bunch of times before we put it out to the world. We get one crack at it with a studio audience and then our producers have to decide if that was good enough to make the show that week." 

"Whereas in standup, you can take a bit about wine, for example, and try that twenty times before you ever decide, 'OK, yeah that's good enough to do on a big show or it's good enough to do on tour.' You get to change it and move it around and alter it and adjust it. And so you get far more cracks at trying to perfect it. So they're kind of very different in that regard."

"And that's not necessarily my style," adds McClellan, "my style is more going into a topic and then there's a number of jokes and angles on this one particular experience or topic. But that's part of the job description and you accept that going in." 

"For me, the way I work generally is very quickly. I've always done it that way," says Critch. 

"[The Ha!ifax ComedyFest] comes in April, right after 22 Minutes, so we start 22 Minutes in September, I go out there and I write a lot for it and then that ends — and the Halifax festival happens. So, it's kind of like, a lot of my trying out material and club kind of time is taken up." 

"A lot of people would work on the same routine for you know, a year or years. I'm just used to doing stuff and boom, it's done, and move on to the next things. So every time I do something like the Ha!ifax ComedyFest, I write new material just for that and every time I've ever done it there, that's kind of the only time I've done it, really."

Every comedian has a different approach to creating jokes and McClellan says: "As an artist you'd like as many attempts at it as you can so that you can put it out and go, 'OK, that was as good as that bit can be.'"

"That's where all the other comedians, of course, they have great routines that they've been perfecting," adds Critch, "so I'm always a little bit nervous before I come out [on stage]."

Critch says he always talks to the stage manager at the Ha!ifax ComedyFest before he goes out, saying: "'Oh, what am I doing, I just wrote this stuff a week ago? Now I'm about to go out and do it in front of these people while being televised. I'm an idiot. Remind me not to do this'. But I got out there and it's all great." 

"Great thing about these comedy festivals," says Critch, "is people see all these new faces who go on to do amazing things. But they're also seeing a lot of their favourites whom they've come to love year after year."

"It's one of those moments where I have had that kind of ability to pause and go like, 'Wow, how grateful am I to just be part of this thing?'," adds McClellan.

Tune into CBC Television on July 19th at 9 p.m. (9:30NT) to watch Trent McClellan's Winnipeg Comedy Festival special called "First Impressions," and August 16th at 9 p.m. (9:30NT) to watch Mark Critch host the 24th season of Ha!ifax ComedyFest.

You can also watch This Hour Has 22 Minutes on CBC Gem now.