The CD cover makes them look like Kraft Philadelphia Cheese angels but Darrin Rose, Graham Chittenden, and Jeff McEnery are young stand-up comics and pretty smart ones too.
Their independent release stand-up comedy CD The Very White Album is very funny and a hell of an idea: three up and coming comedians pool their resources and put out a compact disc featuring each comic’s best twenty minutes. Everybody wins, especially the listener, as all three are solid and have interesting material. This is a concept I hope other comics will steal.
What is obvious on The Very White Album is these three comedians have original material. Rose, Chittenden, and McEnery may not be profound comics but they have new takes on somewhat mundane topics such as garage sales, beards, beer, and public transportation.
Darrin Rose looks like the lead in a movie about Italian house painters and is first up on this CD. His forte is what seems to be autobiographical comedy and his joyride story is quite funny. He is the first comic I have heard to a bit on the brotherhood of the beard. Perhaps the best compliment one can give a comic is I wish there had been more. I was less impressed on the Catholicism and Limbo material. Not that it is offensive but it is rather standard stuff.
Graham Chittenden, the guy in the middle whose bulge seemingly got airbrushed out on the cover, follows Rose. He has an original version of the comic still living with his parents. The haircut bit does not do much for me but the gambling bit makes up for it and the bar scene really does. Chittenden also has a religious bit that is better than many others. Again, in the wish there was more category is the garage sale routine. For better or for worse, there is a bit of a Dane Cook feel to this comic’s rhythm.
Jeff McEnery could not afford brand spanking new white sneakers for the cover so you have to wonder what he did with the 25 grand he got from Yuk Yuk’s 2006 Great Canadian Laugh Off. His opening bit about taking the subway -again, where did the money go?-is good stuff. Mall jokes may be fairly common but this guy has some good if a little too specifically local material on that topic. McEnery is also a biographical comic and his take on being from a small town and his college experience material are very funny. His family / sports material is quite original too.
It took me a while to find it but there is one flaw on this stand-up comedy CD. Many of the jokes are very Toronto centric. Surprise, guys, nobody in the real world gives a &^% about the city that thinks it has culture.
The Very White Album
Darrin Rose, Graham Chittenden, Jeff McEnery
Independent Release Comedy CD 2008
60 minutes
