“The Barenaked Ladies would dream of being able to afford a home in Oshawa.”

— Andrew Packer

By Will McGuirk

Oshawa raised comedian Andrew Packer and the JNT tour, originally scheduled for the Biltmore Theatre, is now appearing at Club Loreley. The move was prompted by new Covid-19 guidelines issued by the Provincial government. Its not the first time the pandemic has knocked Packer’s plans of course. When lockdown was first announced in March 2020, Packer was in the Philippines. A short vacation became a months long sojourn.

Packer told us all about it, as well as growing up in Oshawa.

Slowcity.ca: Tell me about how you ended up getting stuck in the Philippines, had you just arrived, do you not watch the news, were you already living there. . ?

Andrew Packer: “I was doing a stand-up comedy tour through southeast Asia, starting in December 2019 in Singapore, that was supposed to continue all the way to Indonesia in April 2020. People were talking about Covid but it didn’t seem so serious at that point in time. When March 2020 hit, and the whole world shut down, I happened to be on this tiny island in the Philippines called Siargao. It was very drastic. The president of the Philippines announced that the country was shutting down within 48 hours. There were only enough flights back to Manila from the island for about 300 tourists, and there were over 1300 tourists stuck on the island. My fiancée and I were only planning on being there for two weeks but we ended up being there for seven months. It was scary at first but ended up being an experience of a lifetime.”

SC: Can you give me a brief bio of where you grew up in Oshawa and how you got into comedy?

AP: “I grew up near a Thorton & Rossland Rd, in my early years I was a paperboy, delivering the Oshawa This Week newspapers, and I would always be listening to comedy albums (Dave Chappelle, Russel Peters, Dane Cook, George Carlin) while stuffing and delivering those papers. I went to high school at R.S. McLaughlin, and began working at La Pizza & Pasta (Simcoe & Taunton) and the Sportchek in the Oshawa Centre. I then went on to do a degree in Finance at the University of Ottawa, during that time I felt very uninspired by the career paths in front of me. So, I started doing stand-up comedy and just became obsessed immediately. It had always been something that I'd wanted to do and one summer, between my 3rd and 4th year, I decided to make a point to go ahead and perform at an open mic. I wrote ideas for a couple months, trying to come up with jokes and then finally just dove in and performed. It went pretty well from what I can remember but I’m sure it would make me cringe hard if I saw it today haha. After school, I decided to move to Toronto and pursue stand up comedy full-time.”

SC: That Armenian Hye/High bit is priceless, should be a Canadian Heritage Moment video, - it seems to me you are a comedian who is very comfortable playing with an audience, happy to engage and connect - where did that confidence come from?

AP: “Some of my favourite moments in shows are the ones that I get to discover alongside the audience in the moment. I think that’s always been something innate in me, if I follow my curiosity, we eventually find these funny moments. My mom would say even as a small child I would just run up to people and start talking to them as if they weren’t strangers, as if it weren’t an odd thing to do. Not that different from what I do now I guess lol. Of course it’s hard to translate a natural talent into a performance on stage, that came with many years of practice, and it’s something that I continue to work on developing into my stand up.”

SC: There is something very direct about stand-up, not easily portrayed on Zoom for example, how did you manage through the lockdowns, did you do livestreams and if yes, how was that?

AP: “When the pandemic hit and stand up ended, I had to transition to doing online forms of comedic content. Zoom shows existed, but in my opinion the technology just isn’t quite there to translate stand up comedy in a realistic form. It was certainly more fun than not doing a show, but very different from doing a show in person. So, I began making a lot of online content, comedy sketches, TikTok, Youtube & Instagram videos and found some success there. Even had some major pages and prominent people reposting my content, such as Marlene Dickinson from CBC’s Dragon’s Den.”

SC: How are you finding getting back out in front of an audience, what was the first night of this tour like for all involved?

AP: “It was a bit surreal coming back to doing shows in front of live audiences. One of the things I love most about stand-up comedy is to have an idea and be able to perform it that same night in front of an audience, getting direct feedback on the merit of a new joke idea almost immediately. Very different compared to when you write, shoot and edit a sketch, submit it to an online algorithm and hope for the best. Transitioning back to doing shows every night in-front of audiences just felt like being home again. A place where I feel most comfortable and have so much fun connecting with other people.”

SC: Anything with character can be easily flipped into caricature, Oshawa would fall under that, it’s an easy city to make fun of, having said that however, do you have a favourite Oshawa comedy moment?

AP: “Oshawa‘s reputation across the province and the country is something that I’ve had to deal with a lot throughout my comedy career. Naturally talking about where I grew up in my stand up, causes a specific response from crowds all over. What’s funny to me, is how our reputation is changing, especially through this pandemic. Now, all those people who made fun of Oshawa are actively trying to move to Oshawa. Homes are selling for over a million dollars in Oshawa, take that in, The Barenaked Ladies would dream of being able to afford a home in Oshawa. Our city has always felt like the underdog of the GTA but times are changing, we’ve got a great college/university and the renovations in the Biltmore Theatre are beautiful which speaks to a thriving arts culture scene. Sure we’ve got our rough spots but so does every great city in this country. Oshawa’s got great character to it and I’m proud to have grown up here.”