An Afternoon with Brent Butt
Sunday Oct 29 2023 2:00 pm, Winnipeg, Grant Park in the Atrium, Streaming via YouTube
Spend the afternoon with Brent Butt as he brings his brand new comic thriller HUGE (Doubleday Canada) to Winnipeg. This event will feature a reading and a conversation hosted by Dean Jenkinson, followed by a book signing. This event co-presented by the Winnipeg Comedy Festival.
The event will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park and also available as a simultaneous YouTube stream. Before arriving, please review details of how to attend physical events here at the store. The venue is accessible.
In comedy, killing is a good thing. From the award-winning screenwriter and International Emmy nominee comes Huge, an unexpectedly dark and twisted thriller about three stand-up comedians who have embarked on a tour of smaller communities across a remote stretch of rural Canadian countryside. When one of the comedians starts to show signs of a terrifying capacity for brutality offstage too, the tour becomes less about getting laughs and more about getting off the road alive.
Brent Butt has made his home in Vancouver for thirty years, but was born and raised in Tisdale, Saskatchewan. After high school he worked as a drywaller, salesperson, comic book artist, and darkroom technician before deciding to pursue his real dream, and in February of 1988, Butt performed stand-up comedy for the first time on an amateur night at a Saskatoon comedy club. He is now considered one of the funniest people in Canada, with a career in stand-up comedy that stretches into five decades, including numerous appearances at major festivals in multiple countries and being voted Best Male Stand-Up in Canada by his peers in the profession. He also created and starred in two successful sitcoms—Corner Gas (“Funniest Show on TV” as voted by TV Guide readers, currently showing in 60 countries) and Hiccups (multiple Leo and Writers Guild Awards). When you add in two theatrical comedy films (No Clue and Corner Gas: The Movie) and four seasons of an animated Corner Gas spinoff, it may seem surprising that Brent’s latest venture—literature—has taken a rather dark turn. Learn more at his website or on Twitter and Instagram.
Host Dean Jenkinson is an award-winning comedy writer, performer, and festival producer. You’ve seen him on Winnipeg Comedy Festival, Comedy Now, and Air Farce; and heard him on The Debaters, Laugh Out Loud, and SiriusXM. He’s written for 22 Minutes for fifteen seasons, and for Just For Laughs galas since 2012. In 2019 he became Artistic Director of the Winnipeg Comedy Festival.
See:
HUGE
- Brent Butt 
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In comedy, killing is a good thing. From the award-winning screenwriter and International Emmy nominee comes this unexpectedly dark and twisted thriller.
It's 1994, and three stand-up comedians have embarked on a tour of smaller communities across a remote stretch of rural Canadian countryside. Dale is a 40-something comic from Chicago who's on the back half of a mediocre career and thinking about quitting the business. Rynn is a 20-something fast-rising comedy star from Dublin with a big break into TV on her horizon. And who is this third guy, the hulking young man added to the bill at the last minute by a booker with dubious motives? He goes by Hobie Huge, and his enormous physical presence is unfortunately not matched by his skills as opening act. But his brutal lack of ability as a comedian turns out to be the least of his companion's problems. Huge starts to show signs of a terrifying capacity for brutality offstage too--and for Dale and Rynn, the tour becomes less about getting laughs and more about getting off the road alive.
It's going to take some getting used to, but Brent Butt is no longer just a funny guy. His debut novel is so accomplished it's frightening.
