John Hastings a U.K.-based Canadian comedian who is known for his observational storytelling style, returned to Algonquin to headline the first Yuk Yuk’s stand-up comedy event of 2015 at The Observatory.
Hastings was full of energy, yelling and swearing throughout his entire set, telling strange stories that may or may not be true. His New Year’s resolution — he did say — was to lie to more people.
Hastings is originally from Ottawa but he now lives in England. One of his stories that got the full crowd at The Observatory going was about a crazy homeless man in London who pulled a knife on a train ticket attendant that stood safely behind a thick screen of plexiglass, using all sorts of different accents.
This was Jessica Dulmage’s favourite moment of the night. Dulmage studies early childhood education at Algonquin. While Brock Young, who studies game development loved it when Hastings picked on students at the bar.
Hastings said the crowd this year was definitely less drunk. Last year students were passing out during his set and he even stole and ate a drunk girl’s poutine while she frantically searched the bar for it. Hearing about last year’s antics was Joel Samson a computer systems technician student’s favourite part of the night.
When dealing with a student crowd, Hastings said that he doesn’t change his set up too much. “I try not to get too out of touch,” said Kyle Hickey the comedian that hosted the event. Hickey lives in Toronto and his material is mostly made up of jokes about drugs and sex. “But you can’t be a try hard,” said Hastings.
Regardless of a ten year age difference between Hastings and the average Algonquin student, he finds his material still works because people of all ages are connected by what they see online.
“Because of social media, everyone’s looking at the same things,” said Hastings.