071622 Mike Lynch/Brian Aylward/Colin Hollett, Harbour Grace, NL

Shortly after I moved to Newfoundland I came across a series of very amateur youtube videos featuring a crew called The Outhouse, basically a trio of local young fellas who put on thick Newfie accents and did their best to make fun of themselves.  I wasn’t really sure if they were funny or not but they helped me learn about the new culture I had just joined, plus they made me laugh.  Buddies out in the shed drinking too many beers and listening to AC/DC, missus yelling at the kids to settle down and eat their scrunchins, that sort of thing.  It seemed that the videos centred mostly on one of the three, Mike Lynch.  This was at the onset of the pandemic so I figured these guys were just filling their free time and trying to make a bit of a name for themselves.

Now, when m’lady and I decided to move to Harbour Grace one of the selling points was the takeover of two local historic buildings by St. John’s microbrewery heavyweights Yellowbelly Brewery, who said they were going to transform the old stone courthouse into an entertainment venue/speakeasy and the grand cathedral into an international beer spa (whatever that is).  And so after we arrived we kept an eye on both enterprises.  As of this writing the cathedral is still being worked on but in January of 2021 the courthouse finally announced a show.  A comedy show.  And lo, it starred this Mike Lynch fella.  I logged on a few minutes before the tickets want on sale and hovered over my mouse.  Then the doorbell rang.  It was the plumber (oh, the joys of home ownership) and by the time I got myself back to my computer the show was sold out.  Ratsbananas.

We did manage to get tickets to the next show that happened at the courthouse, a St. John’s bar band that was booked in several months later.  It was something like $40 a ticket and they played Wagon Wheel for crying out loud.  Go out on the street right now and hand a guitar to any passing twelve-year-old and I bet they can play Wagon Wheel.  And the beer was flat and warm.  No wonder, with no vats yet on site all the beers had been pickup-trucked in from Yellowbelly’s main location in Town.  It was an all-around disappointment, but on my way out the door at the end of the night I caught the ear of the owner who showed me around the downstairs speakeasy part and the small outdoor courtyard.  It all looked fantastic and I couldn’t wait until the place opened on the regular.

It still hasn’t.

However, fast forward to the summer of 2022 when I noticed an announcement on the facebook: the Best Kind Comedy Tour starring Mike Lynch was going to kick off their cross-Canada dates right there at the courthouse on July 16th, a Saturday night that coincided with my mother and her beau’s second visit to our house.  I stuffed cotton in my ears lest the doorbell should ring and managed to book us a table.

The show took place outside in the small stone-walled courtyard where prisoners had been afforded a modicum of exercise going back over 190 years.  There were thirteen plastic picnic tables set up and ours was dead centre.  It was a beautiful night and the beer was cold, if flat.  Mike Lynch came out and introduced the first act and off we went on a two-hour colloquial laugh-a-thon giggle sandwich (with the meat heavily weighted towards the middle, as sandwiches tend to do).   

First up was Colin Hollett who spent most of his set talking about breaking off his wedding engagement.  It was a pretty good shtick and he did a pretty fair job of warming up the crowd, though he was unquestionably the right choice for the opening slot.  He ended with a rant about Newfoundland Chinese takeouts that only got uncomfortable when he did the accent.  Sure, I ride a razor between say-what-you-want and really-dude? but when I think back to the best comedians out there none of them resort to putting on ethnic accents for a laugh.  Seems like dude might be able to try a little harder.

Mike Lynch was up next and I gotta say, he hit it out of the park.  Turns out those Outhouse videos were not a covid invention; the guy has been doing standup for several years, and it showed.  He spent the entirety of his set focussing on a game of Truth or Dare that he played with his best friend as a kid, a story that would have been horribly awkward in the wrong hands, but like I say: he nailed it.  Funny guy.  I’ll go see him again for sure.

The last act was a burly guy named Brian Aylward who met the crowd’s first offended groan with, “Oh sure, you all laughed at Colin’s quasi-racist Chinese restaurant act and you were fine with Mike’s homo-erotic stories about being molested as a child, but you find me offensive?!?”  He was really good but I considered Mr. Lynch the headliner, even if he wasn’t last.

By eleven o’clock I had three comedians in my rearview mirror and just as many flat beers in my round belly.  Bill picked up the tab while I swooned once more at the inert basement speakeasy and quietly longed for it to open on the reg.  And then we walked three hundred meters back to the house and enjoyed a backyard nightcap.