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Review: Second City’s ‘Unwrapped’ is a holiday treat (Includes first-hand account)

Unwrapped is the latest sketch comedy show from Second City Toronto, and while the upcoming holiday season is the theme du jour, the ensemble cast doesn’t just stick to making fun of Christmas carols, awkward office holiday parties and the birth of Jesus Christ.

Opening with a holiday song on the perils of winter — slipping and falling, shoveling your driveway three times in one day, mingling with the masses for gift shopping, the ominous “Winterman” — it sets the tone for fast and furious comedy. Regardless of whether the skit in question works or not, each actor devotes his or her whole body to the performance, which help keeps the energy up throughout.

Particularly noteworthy was Ann Pornel, who brought her physical performances to a whole other level from the rest of the cast, whether she was playing a guy who doesn’t know he’s sexist, the drunk wife of a scandal-plagued senator or a woman who just wants to “get her drink on.”

Most of the holiday-themed material worked pretty well. The aforementioned intro song quickly cycles through all the things Canadians loathe about winter, and Brandon Hackett’s attempt to sing a holiday song that incorporates all religious beliefs led to a pretty poignant observation about the significance of saying “Merry Christmas” in this day and age. Lindsay Mullen’s rambling monologue as the Virgin Mary recasts God as a deadbeat dad, and a skit about holiday delays at an airport turns into a hilarious contest of seemingly altruistic oneupsmanship. A skit about a Canadian border services holiday party didn’t work quite as well, though the end of the scene’s out-of-nowhere conclusion is good for a gasp or two.

Non-holiday skits for the most part were quite funny. A full-cast skit about a Canadian senator’s family posing for a photo seemed clunky at first, but as it goes on, the absurdity ramps up so much that it turns right around into being funny again. Hackett and Alessandra Vite’s husband-and-wife-at 3 a.m. skit is similarly bizarre but comes around to being hilarious.

The full ensemble cast on stage in  Unwrapped  (L-R Brandon Hackett  Lindsay Mullan  Ann Pornel  Rog...

The full ensemble cast on stage in ‘Unwrapped’ (L-R Brandon Hackett, Lindsay Mullan, Ann Pornel, Roger Bainbridge, Devon Hyland)
Racheal McCaig

Devon Hyland and Roger Bainbridge teamed up for a fun song about the differences of small-town and big-city living, and Pornel and Bainbridge’s skit about casual sexism at a bus stop is both hilarious and extremely important social commentary. Hackett and Bainbridge’s attempt to get out of watching Selma highlights our sometimes-hypocritical need to watch “important” films, while Mullen and Hyland make fun of the perils of Tinder dating — punctuated by the awkwardness of parting ways at a Toronto subway station.

Not everything lands — a few skits’ choices to transition into dance numbers didn’t do enough to make their scenes work overall, and a skit about three girls getting ready to go out on the town was kind of awkward — but such is the nature of a show with so many scenes. A large majority deliver laughs in song, bizarre logic or as social critique.

It’s also well worth staying after the show for the cast’s improv sets. Last night featured a tragicomic 12-year-old girl in college’s administrative love triangle, a stripper named “Candy Cane,” a couple surprised by their Airbnb hosts and too many more bizarre things to do justice to with written words.

Whether you’re looking for Christmas parody or a song about “Netflix and chill,” Unwrapped is a gift for everyone (though you’ll probably want to keep your kids away from this one).

The Second City: Unwrapped runs until Jan. 1.

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