Ironworks, Inverness, 17 February 2011

IT’S PROBABLY best if I just confess at the outset…  Canadian comedian Tom Stade is a mystery to me.   I’ve searched the internet for his biography and have only found six facts about him I can include in this piece.  Usually comedians are bursting with information about their early lives, what pets they had and how scarred they are by their parents divorce, etc. Us reviewers eagerly hoover up these bits of information and include them in our features to create the illusion we actually know what we are talking about.  Unfortunately, Mr Stade has kept us in the dark.  There’s no way round it, I’ll actually have to review him.

Canadian comedian Tom Stade

If you found yourself in a railway waiting room with Tom Stade you wouldn’t entertain yourself for very long trying to guess what he does for a living. Stade oozes comedy.  From the moment he stepped on to the stage at the Ironworks he engaged with the crowd with an effortless ease that can only come from thousands of hours in front of an audience.  Stade is perhaps one of the busiest stand ups in Britain and it shows in his performance. He is so polished he makes it look spontaneous and that, in stand up, is a great trick.  As they say, if you can fake spontaneity (or is it sincerity?) you’ve got it made.

Not that Stade’s routine wasn’t spontaneous at times.  He was obviously delighted when three of the audience turned out to be members of the Black Watch.  Stade is used to performing in front of soldiers having done tours of Iraq and Afghanistan (Fact 1).   He brilliantly worked in some of his material about camouflage uniforms but was also quick to riff off the soldiers when they, as soldiers do, began larking around.

Stade even sounds like a comedian; his voice has a “lived in” quality and he confesses his husky drawl is the result of a lifetime’s dope smoking.  His voice sounds like it’s been up all night drinking in a strip joint on the outskirts of some ramshackle town in the mid-west of America.  That’s probably because it has. His accent is more cannabis than Canadian.

Stade has now settled with his wife and two children in Edinburgh.  (Facts 2 and 3)  He found that UK audiences responded to him far better than those in his native Canada.  The Canadians were too polite for this clever if foul-mouthed comedian.  In Britain he has a greater range to explore the limits of obscenity, and Stade toyed with the Inverness crowd trying to see how far he could go on religion before the audience backed away from the precipice.

Stade now has three Edinburgh shows behind him, And Relax in 2006, Set List in 2007 and Oh Fuck, do we need a title too? in 2008  (Fact 4) He also has some TV appearances to his credit, including The Live Floor Show and, more recently Mock the Week and Michael Macintyre’s hugely popular stand up showcase (Fact 5).

The audience was a relatively small one on Thursday night, but the Ironworks displayed its increasing experience at showing comedy by bringing the audience close together and using a lower stage in the body of the auditorium. Had Stade performed on the higher music stage that the Ironworks uses for its music gigs, or had the crowd been less densely packed, a lot of the atmosphere and intimacy of the gig would have been lost.  The Ironworks is fast maturing as a comedy venue and is well established on the circuit.  Booking Stade was a wise move as he was clearly enjoyed by the Ironworks’ rapidly growing comedy audience.

Watching Stade I couldn’t help be reminded of another comedian, one from the pioneering days of stand up, Lenny Bruce.  There was something about Stade’s look, the way he moved on stage and his obvious love of words that reminded me of the grainy black and white films I have seen of the long dead Jewish comedian.  It was Bruce, of course, whose eloquent obscenity frequently got him arrested on stage, and whose battle with censorship gave modern comedians the freedom they now enjoy.

Stade was hugely enjoyable, witty, quick on his comedy feet and very clever.  He is clearly developing into a star and deserves to be seen by a wider audience.  (Sorry, I forgot fact 6)

Australian comedian Ro Campbell

Stade was supported on Thursday night by Australian comedian Ro Campbell.  I’m going to give him a good review, not because he threatened me with extreme violence if I didn’t, but because he was very funny.  It’s tough going on first, especially if you are not the guy everyone paid to see, but Campbell rose to the challenge with the ease of a real professional.

Everyone makes little mistakes, as Campbell confessed, but surely his moving to Shetland for two years was a massive one.  There’s nothing wrong with Shetland but for a comedian it is perhaps a tad out of the way.  Campbell’s stories about the Shetland ferry to Aberdeen were hilarious and pure comedy gold.  Moving to Shetland may not have gone well for him but the material it produced was well worth the trip.

I have seen Campbell’s act develop over the years and he took to the stage on Thursday night with all the energy and attack that are his trademark.  Where once he had rambling stories with great punch lines Campbell now delivers these gags honed to perfection and with brilliant accuracy.  The Inverness crowd took to him instantly and I am sure would welcome him back as a headliner.

Ro Campbell is only five years into his comedy career but his act on Thursday was sharp, high energy, comedy magic and he gave us a great starter before Stade’s main course.

(Hope that’s okay Ro, please don’t hit me).

© John Burns, 2011

Links

• Ironworks
• Tom Stade
• John Burns