PREVIEW
What: Katie-Ellen Humphries
Where: Yuk Yuk’s, 751 View St.
When: Thursday, 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Tickets: $20 (778-265-4114 or yukyuks.com/victoria)
In the old days, you’d find Katie-Ellen Humphries churning through the Gorge waterway as a competitive swimmer.
Today, you’re more likely to find her behind a microphone.
That’s where Humphries will be tonight and on Friday and Saturday at Yuk Yuk’s comedy club. She’s the first Victoria-raised comic to play the venue. The 30-something performer will offer offbeat observational comedy, as well as riffing on such topics as relationships and friends who’re starting families.
Don’t go expecting the cynicism that passes for “edginess” in some comedy clubs. Humphries says her PG-13 show puts a positive spin on things, even when hot-button subjects such as misogyny are being addressed.
“Ultimately, I’m coming out of the sunny side of the issue. There will be no hate-type language. I don’t want anyone to feel alienated,” she said this week from her Vancouver home.
If the name Katie-Ellen Humphries sounds familiar, you might be remembering her days with Victoria’s Atomic Vaudeville comedy troupe.
Eight years ago, she moved to Vancouver to make it as a standup comic. She succeeded. Now, Humphries has a contract with the national Yuk Yuk’s chain and has appeared at such events as the Just for Laughs NorthWest festival, the Bumbershoot festival and the San Francisco Sketchfest.
For years, Humphries was a competitive swimmer in Victoria, first with Pacific Coast Swimming and then with the Vikes (while completing an English degree at the University of Victoria). Her forté was long-distance swimming. She won the national championship in the five-kilometre open-water category three times.
Comedy and competitive swimming might not seem alike, yet Humphries sees parallels between the two. For instance, in the old days, she would often travel to Vancouver to compete from Thursdays through Saturdays. Such a schedule is typical of the work week for standup comedy performances, as well.
As well, both comedy and swimming require an individual sense of determination and focus.
Humphries said it wasn’t easy when she moved to Vancouver. She once told an interviewer she felt isolated at first, and spent days “lying on the floor staring at the ceiling.” It was depression.
“I was in a bad way for a year,” she said.
Part of the problem was what Humphries describes as “arrested development.” For years, her life had revolved around the insular world of competitive swimming. Moving to a new city and leaving that community was a difficult adjustment. Eventually, Humphries recovered. She started performing open-mic gigs, eventually meeting other comics who in turn invited her to open for them.
“They are the weirdos that do the strange thing that you want to do,” she joked. “I would say it took about a year after moving over [to Vancouver] to get my feet underneath me.”
Those initial gigs were unpaid. Humphries supported herself through lean times as a marketing copywriter.
Growing up, her comedy idols were Cathy Jones of CODCO and This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Gilda Radner and Richard Pryor. Her first performing experiences were with the 30 Cent Players, a Victoria improv troupe.
Humphries recalls her first real standup comedy show was at the Tally Ho Sports Bar & Grill on Douglas Street. It was successful enough to encourage her to continue. “It went as well as it can go when your audience is maybe a couple of friends, some long-haul truckers and some people playing Keno in the back,” she said.
