Seven years ago, comic Christina Walkinshaw lost her gigs at Casino Niagara after a prior heckling incident.
About five minutes into a 20-minute set at Yuk Yuk’s, a group of men at a table called on her to lift her shirt. When she ignored them, they continued to their harassment and yelled for the North Delta-raised comic to pull down her pants.
The experience — and the casino’s reaction to cancel her upcoming stage appearances (the company had a policy not to stop hecklers) — rattled Walkinshaw and made national headlines.
Times have changed since the #MeToo movement, said Vancouver comic Erica Sigurdson who, Sunday night, brings her touring show called My Jokes Are Up Here to Coquitlam, featuring Walkinshaw and Jen Grant.
The three comedians will also be recording their performance for their third live album, due to be released in June.
The show material will be “everything about life,” Sigurdson said. “It’s not just, ‘As a woman, insert joke here...’ It’s all very topical. We’re going to talk about things from a less male perspective, that’s all.”
Sigurdson, who is best known locally as the MC of past Port Moody Arts Centre fundraisers and nationally for her work on CBC’s The Debaters, is grateful to reunite with Walkinshaw and Grant, with the former now calling Los Angeles home while the latter is settled in Quebec.
They’ve toured My Jokes Are Up Here across the country “and now it’s my turf,” Sigurdson said, noting their comedy act will also play out Friday on Valentine’s Day in Maple Ridge as well as at Coquitlam’s Evergreen Cultural Centre two nights later.
Sigurdson said ticket-holders will get three routines for the price of one.
“Often, when you go to the theatre, it’s other comics and one headliner,” she said. “We’ve got three headliners who are very accomplished, at the top of Canadian comedy.”
For tickets to My Jokes Are Up Here Feb. 16 at 7:30 p.m., call the Evergreen Cultural Centre (1205 Pinetree Way, Coquitlam) at 604-927-6555 or visit evergreenculturalcentre.ca.
