Graham Clark

Graham Clark is one of the bright young faces on the Vancouver comedy scene. He's a tireless worker who's always writing new material and performing all over the place, including his own room, El Cocal Restaurant (1037 Commercial Drive), every Wednesday night. The following are this funnyman's faves:

BEST ROOM OR CLUB

The Urban Well
1516 Yew Street
604-737-7770

"My favourite place to go to just hang out and perform is probably the Urban Well [1516 Yew Street]. That's where everybody goes every week. It's a real community thing, where you can perform and see everybody in the scene. That's the place. It's the hub."

ALL-TIME FAVOURITE VANCOUVER COMIC

"Brent Butt. Consistent brilliance over a long period of time. He's always funny, always. He would never, ever phone in a set. He was always funny even if there were only three people in the room. He was still hilarious. I could hear his jokes a million times; I'd still laugh at them. As far as just pure consistency and being one leg up on everybody else in town, it's Brent. He was the godfather."

BEST THING ABOUT PERFORMING IN FRONT OF VANCOUVER AUDIENCES

"It makes you tough. And there's a lot of them-there seems to be a lot of audience here. I could play six shows in a week and there'd probably be an audience at all six of them. Certainly not an audience that is going there to give it up in any way, shape, or form! They're not easy."

BEST POST-SHOW HANGOUT

Ken's Chinese Restaurant
2718 Main Street
604-876-6328

"The food is really good, they're open late, and you can sit there as long as you want, talk comedy for hours if you want, and they never try to chase you out because it's never busy."

BEST LINE BY A LOCAL COMIC YOU WISH YOU HAD THOUGHT OF

"There's too many. I would say pretty much anything John Beuhler has written. He's got just tons and tons and tons of lines. The one I really like is where he's talking about getting fucked by a bear. He comes back to the city and his friend says, 'How was the camping trip? Did you catch anything?' And he says, 'Aw! I didn't even think about that!' I love that line. Because it's at the very tail end of the joke. It's almost a throwaway line, but it's the best line in the joke.

BEST PLACE TO TRY OUT NEW MATERIAL

El Cocal Restaurant
1037 Commercial Drive
604-255-4580

"El Cocal. Because that audience demands new material. So often it's repeat audiences and they do not care to hear the jokes that they heard the week before or the month before. I would have said the Crash 'n' Burn night [at Yuk Yuk's], but everything goes over so well there that you have no idea what's going to be actual material when you walk out of there. People kill there. Whereas at El Cocal, nobody kills. There's no killing. There's some gentle maiming sometimes. That's about it."

Roman Danylo

Give Roman Danylo a Duraflame log and he's happy. Mark Mushet photo.

Roman Danylo just finished taping the third season of Comedy Inc. on CTV. Equally at home with sketch, improv, or standup, the local entertainer just wrapped up a Vancouver Fringe Festival appearance in This Is Not a Show With Roman Danylo. Here are his thoughts on the city's best laughs:

BEST ROOM OR CLUB TO PERFORM IN

The Urban Well

"I know I'm biased, but that would be the Urban Well on Monday nights for our improv show. It's the most fun. For standup, I would say I have the most fun at Lafflines on a packed weekend."

ALL-TIME FAVOURITE VANCOUVER COMIC

"There was a guy named Ian Goldberg. This guy was an amateur that was around for a couple of years. He was hilarious, and all the comics would gather in the back to watch him. He didn't know why he was funny and that's what made it so funny. He had all these strange pauses. It was the insecure looks between the jokes that was so funny. And he was extremely earnest. The audience totally saw that and they loved it. Man, he was funny. I tell you, all the comics would sit up and go, 'Ian's on. Here we go, people. Five minutes of fun.' And you would just start giggling."

BEST THING ABOUT PERFORMING IN FRONT OF VANCOUVER AUDIENCES

"It's like swinging with two bats. It's a great training ground, so that when you go to perform to audiences in, like, Calgary or Edmonton or Hamilton, they eat you up. Because it's just a lot easier when you perform in other places. In Vancouver, it's tough to get them. They're kicking back, they're lounging. They're like, 'Go ahead.' It's more like jazz here, and in other cities it's more totally like rock 'n' roll."

BEST POST-SHOW HANGOUT

The Urban Well

"Because it's just a great pub and place to hang out. You really can't do that almost anywhere else. The reason it's so great is because the beach is right there. Which is just a crazy, ridiculous concept when you compare that to other cities. Here you can do a show and afterwards you go hang out on the beach, get a Duraflame log, and talk about your show."

BEST LINE BY A LOCAL COMIC YOU WISH YOU HAD THOUGHT OF

"I love and always request Tim Rykert to do his bit about grammar. He talks about people trying to learn English. He pretends he's a teacher going, 'Okay, so it's mouse/mice. It's house/houses. It's goose/geese. And it's moose/moose. There you go, just follow the rules.' That cracks me up."

BEST PLACE TO TRY OUT NEW MATERIAL

The Urban Well

"For improv, the first half of the Monday night at the Urban Well. We're always trying different games there that I saw in a different city. That's the good thing about improv: you can directly steal the games from other people. But for standup, to really know if a bit works, you gotta try it in the middle of a headlining set. The most likely place for me to do that would be Lafflines [26 4th Street, New Westminster; 604-525-2262]."

Peter Kelamis

Peter Kelamis hangs out where everybody knows your name. Mark Mushet photo.

You know Peter Kelamis from TV commercials: he's the guy in the glove compartment or the dude in the full-length cell-phone costume. But standup fans know him as one of the best comics in the country. Here are his picks from the comedy scene:

BEST ROOM OR CLUB FOR COMEDY

Yuk Yuk's
1015 Burrard Street
604-696-9857

"The new Yuks is a great place to perform on a weekend because of the feel of the room. [Manager] Mike Breslin's really got it cooking in there. There are really energetic crowds, it's a nice place. It's just a nice millennium-type comedy club."

ALL-TIME FAVOURITE VANCOUVER COMIC

"I'd have to go with Brent Butt. I could hear the same joke for the 100th time and I'd be laughing just as hard as I did the first time. He's more than just a pleasure to watch. There's this comfort about him, seeing somebody who's a master at it perform flawlessly."

BEST THING ABOUT PERFORMING IN FRONT OF VANCOUVER AUDIENCES

"It's home. I feel looser; I feel like I can take more risks and they forgive you more. I always hear from other comics that Vancouver crowds are the toughest. Certain rooms can get a little younger and kinda pretentious, but that's a rarity, I think. I find Vancouver crowds great."

BEST POST-SHOW HANGOUT

The Urban Well

"Gotta go with the Well. There's usually a lot of comics hanging out. It's got this Cheers-type atmosphere where if you're a comic, there's a sense of community walking in there. There's always a 'Norm' there, but it changes from week to week."

BEST LINE BY A LOCAL COMIC YOU WISH YOU HAD THOUGHT OF

"This is going back. It's from Craig Campbell, who comes through town very rarely now. He lives in England. One of my favourite lines ever was when he said, 'Have you ever been to a bar and this guy is trying to pick up a girl? He's just feeding her all this crap and she's just buying into everything he's saying. Everything. It's like, 'Really? Really? Then how'd you make yourself visible again?'?"

BEST PLACE TO TRY OUT NEW MATERIAL

The Urban Well

"That's where I feel comfortable trying it out. A few years back the crowds used to be easier, but because the show's gone on for so long, I think their standard of comedy is higher than it was and they're a little bit pickier-but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It pushes you to write better and more original material. You can't do that in a local bar in the middle of nowhere. It's not a good gauge."

Guy MacPherson interviews comedians on What's So Funny? every Sunday night from 11 p.m. to midnight on CFRO.