Montreal Comedy Festival 2013

Making it to Montreal has long been a dream of ours. Not only for the French food or the Art scene, but out of a desire to attend one of the holy trinity of comedy festivals - Melbourne, Edinburgh and Montreal. We have been lucky enough to make it to Melbourne a couple of times and when we knew we were coming to Canada, we of course planned the timing of the trip around attending the comedy festival. July arrived and this signaled the beginning of the festival and time for us to make our way north to Montreal after a great time with our friends in Waterloo, Ontario.

Montreal wasn't really what we expected. It generally seemed like a place torn between what it wanted to be and what it was - it wasn't french, but it wasn't English, it wasn't old, but it wasn't modern and it wasn't classy but it wasn't "trashy" for want of a better word. We were definitely thrown by the amount of people begging. Although this may have been amplified because of the festival, it seemed like every block or two we were being asked for money and they didn't take it well when we declined. I don't mean to paint a bad picture of Montreal - it certainly has a nice 'Old Montreal' area and a number of wonderful neighbourhoods, but overall this place felt rough.

The comedy festival itself delivered some great performance. We went to the Seth Myers Gala Festival (Seth Myers currently being the head writer for Saturday Night Live) which delivered some great laughs. Brendan got thoroughly picked on by the panel at the Tod Barry & Friends Pod Cast which included John Mulaney, Jimmy Carr, and Brent Weinbach (check out minute 56 to 59). My two favourite shows however, were slightly off the main arena with Adsit & Lutz (from the TV Show 30 Rock) and Colin & Brad from 'Whose Line Is It Anyway? - both shows incorporating a lot of crowd participation and largely improvised. Getting decent photos was hard as they generally frowned on the use of cameras in the shows, but given it's comedy, photographs don't exactly do it justice. It was interesting to note the differences between the Montreal and Melbourne festivals. Given its proximity to the US, Montreal certainly had a greater percentage of US Comedians but strangely lacked the beloved sarcastic and dark humour brought by UK representatives. Montreal also used a lot of random, out of the way venues that did not seem well suited to comedy shows. I'm really glad we got the chance to make it to the festival, but it won't be one that we will be planning to come back to anytime soon (certainly not until we tick off the Edinburgh Festival).

Otherwise in Montreal, we simply walked around during the day exploring the far corners of the city and sampling the culinary delights that were on offer. Although bagel connoisseurs may shout in protest, I am told that Montreal rivals its US neighbours for producing amazing bagels. I don't really get the "bagel" craze - they are fine as a massive carb hit, but they don't really get me buzzing. The smoked meat sandwiches, on the other hand, were much more interesting! Montreal is famous for its smoked meat served in copious quantities on bread slathered with mustard (and a pickle on the side) and we certainly hunted down some great spots. I am sure you will hear all about it on the travel bites blog in the next couple of months as things quieten down a little and we get a chance to catch up on writing about the amazing places and dining experiences we have had during our Canadian adventure.

Brendan also caught up with a friend from Boston who came up to Montreal to meet us. Although we had planned to continue north to Quebec City, we were invited back to Boston and decided to jump on the opportunity to explore some of the east coast of America for a few days (if they would be so kind as to let us through their border). Those stories and more to come hopefully in the next week or so as we madly try and catch our blog up to date. Until then...

 //Kate