Review: Walking on Bombshells (The Second City)

Toronto’s Second City presents their spring main stage revue

The comedic masterminds at Second City are back with their latest spring main stage revue, Walking on Bombshells. Known for top notch and highly physical sketch comedy, this new collection of sketches is relevant, politically charged, and fuelled with all things Toronto that you can practically hear the TTC chimes in the distance.

If you are familiar with Second City revues, you’re bound to recognize much of this current cast. Returning to the stage are Nadine Djoury, Chris Wilson, Sharjil Rasool, Alanna Reoch, Stacey McGunnigle, and PHATT al, who clearly have put much time and effort into crafting and perfecting their sketches.

There are plenty of sketch highlights in Walking on Bombshells and what truly make them stand out are the sheer relevancy to life in Toronto. Rasool takes center stage in a sketch about condo buying in the impossible Toronto market which certainly hits home, right down to a sly comment about a chair falling from a top floor.

I also adored PHATT al’s reggae tribute to those still incarcerated for marijuana charges in a city where the substance has been legalized. I loved the racially charged zingers in that one.

As with the other revues I’ve watched McGunnigle in, I love her dedication to physical comedy; she’s an actor that fully commits to pulling faces and making large avant garde movements when necessary. Her drunk birthday sketch is my favorite of the evening.

The set for the show is all too familiar of the platform at Osgoode station, right down to the train map. Though the design is strikingly accurate enough to take your brain for a spin, I found that they didn’t reference the set enough during the show. Most TTC themed jokes seemed to be throwaways between sketches.

As the set is static through out the show, there are some sketches, like the spa sketch, where it definitely felt out of place. Though I’ve certainly seen weirder things on a TTC platform before.

Though most sketches were hits across the board, the one I didn’t think worked as well was the bilingual alert announcer on the Air Canada flight that hits turbulence. Maybe it was the turbulence that didn’t quite connect with the ‘everything must be bilingual announcements’ or maybe the sketch is just a bit too close to home with the recent Boeing 737 crash, but the sketch just didn’t hit the right note for me.

Overall, Walking on Bombshells is a great performance and worth experiencing on an evening out. This revue has much more physical comedy than I’m used to seeing from Second City and there isn’t as much audience-involvement in sketches as there has been previously, but that may be a bonus. Either way, this is a show you need to see.

Details:

  • Walking on Bombshells is playing at The Second City Mainstage Theatre (51 Mercer St) until June 30, 2019.
  • Performances run Tuesdays through Thursdays at 8:00 pm, double performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm and 10:00 pm and Sundays at 7:30 pm.
  • Tickets are $27 with dinner and show packages at $57. Student prices and group discounts are available, see website for details.
  • Audience Advisory: This performance contains strobe lighting, mature subject matter and coarse language. Viewer discretion is advised.

Photo of (left to right) Stacey McGunnigle, Allana Reoch, Nadine Djoury, PHATT al, Sharjil Rasool, Chris Wilson by Paul Aihoshi.

2 thoughts on “Review: Walking on Bombshells (The Second City)”

  1. I totally disagree Chris, for live theatre SC tickets are very affordable – they are just $20 on Mondays, and $27 for Tuesday – Thursday that is pretty much the cost to go so a movie these days!

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