A comedy writer will be poking fun at everything Canadian in Lake Country next week.
Alex Huntley, 32, is a writer at Canadian satire media outlet The Beaverton and co-author of The Beaverton Presents Glorious And/or Free: The True History of Canada.
After dealing with fake news (especially with vaccinations) for years as a public health officer, Huntley turned to write comedy; poking fun at politicians, history, the media and just about everything we call Canadian as his civic duty.
“I just had this draw to exposing problems in the public service in a humorous tone like what happened with the Phoenix pay system,” he said. “There was a certain amount of cynicism that I had to turn into art, which was satire.”
READ MORE: Beaverton writer to visit Lake Country
Huntley, from Kingston, Ont., will present excerpts from his book at Creekside Theatre, Oct. 27.
The presentation will also have jokes and a PowerPoint presentation to give off a professor/lecture vibe.
“This is actually the first time I will actually give a presentation to an audience who has paid a ticket, so I’m like ‘what the hell is going on?’ It’s fantastic, but I’m more of a writer… I’ve never done any physical comedy,” Huntley said.
“This is more of a Canadian history lecture where you think I’m a professor but I’m really not,” he said.“It is kind of like a news reporting on top of some other jokes, I do break the fourth wall a little bit, but it is kind of like a history professor sitting down.”
“If you’ve seen Heritage Moments you’ll get a lot of my jokes.”
Huntley’s influenced by the earlier versions of an angry Rick Mercer, he said, and satirist Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels.
“I just like smart-ass comedy,” he said.
The show will also traverse darker parts of Canadian history.
At The Beaverton, authors try to have a mix of topics and the stories are told differently depending on the platforms.
For his novel, he said history is more difficult to broadcast to a mixed audience.
”We had to get it (right) for people who like history and the story of their nation but as well as the problems and the hilarity that goes along with it, so it goes right from the beginning to the future in the book, and yes there is an Alanis Morissette reference.”
Some fan favourite jokes are ones like “the last spike was driven in by the first white guy to ever perform labour on the CPR,” he said.
“We have an IKEA catalogue from the sawed huts from the Vikings up in Newfoundland, called VIKEA,” he said.
The presentation will also poke fun at Vimy Ridge, visiting the historical moment in Canadian history during the First World War by making fun of how it was documented.
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“You get really happy when you see people engaging with your work and that’s key,” he said. “I could have been making government reports that no one would read, or Id’ be writing satirical fake news which 10s, 100s even millions of people can read.”
I feel it as a duty too, to point out the absurdity of power in politicians that try to cover the wool over people’s eyes.”
Tickets can be purchased online at www.kelownatickets.com/events/event/CreeksideBeaverton.
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carli.berry@kelownacapnews.com
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