When it comes to comedy, Vancouverite Cameron Macleod has done it all. In addition to producing The Hero Show at the China Cloud Theatre every month, as well as participating in other Vancouver staples like Rapp Battlez and Weird Al Karaoke, the comedian has also begun dabbling in writing and directing films. Read on to learn more about his current improv group Matterhorn Improv, what makes The Hero Show so special, and his dream of one day filming a full penetration shot for comedy’s sake.
[Interview has been edited and condensed for print]
Tell people what you do in the Vancouver comedy scene.
I’m a producer and a writer and a performer. In the past I was the comedy curator for Olio Festival and the comedy curator and producer of Comedy Waste, but I handed that off last year. I produce a lot of live shows, mainly The Hero Show, as well as help produce and promote its sister show Sidekicks, which is every second month at China Cloud. I also produce the Matterhorn Improv show, which is a monthly with Brian Cook and Andrew Barber. Lately I’ve gotten into directing. I used to direct sketches but I’m trying to get into bigger projects. I started with Orgies Happening Tonight, which is my first written and directed full short film. I do improv as well with Vancouver TheatreSports League, Matterhorn, and other shows around town.
What’s your favourite project right now?
Matterhorn’s been great. We’ve been performing together for three years, but now that we’re performing at the China Cloud, it really feels like we have a style of how we do an improv set. [. . .] Brian and Andrew are two of my best buddies and when you get to improvise with people who you’re tight with, it’s so easy and fearless. You can go on stage and do absolutely anything you want and you know that they’ll have your back. You can do the craziest thing you want and it’ll somehow work out.
What can you tell me about Orgies Happening Tonight?
The idea for the script came from me and Brandi Bertrand having drinks on the patio one day, talking about Dan Savage’s Hump!, which is a film festival that tells people to be a porn star for a weekend and make a five-minute porno. In that festival there’s a $1,000 prize for best comedic short, so we thought, “How can we write a comedy porno?”
It was just a joke, but then I went home and wrote down our idea. It started out as a comedy porno because I wanted to have a full penetration shot that was happening right beside a guy’s face during a scene, so it started as pitching this comedy porno to comedians being like, “Would you play this character in this comedy porno?” [I soon] got in touch with Daniel Code, and we started talking about logistics and costs and if we were to make this a comedy porno, what kind of festival could we actually apply to other than Hump!? After thinking about all that, I decided to scale it back.
It’s a comedy that’s very sexually charged [with] nudity in it, but there’s no graphic sex. The full penetration shot is still a dream of mine to have in a comedy, because in newer films like Borat or Walk Hard, there are all these gratuitous male penis shots. I just figure that the next step is a full penetration shot, but have it in a way that’s not sexualized; it’s just a joke, seeing it as a joke instead of a pornographic image. But for the purposes of this short we decided to take that out. Orgies Happening Tonight is the story of a guy who works a shitty office job and hates his life, but then the janitor, who’s his guardian angel, tells him that he should go to an orgy and that it will change his life.
Tell me about your monthly comedy night The Hero Show.
It’s become this show where the audience is a theatre audience; they’re not a stand-up audience. It’s not a crowd that wants immediate jokes. They have patience and they’ll watch and see what the payoff is and even if there’s no payoff, they’ll still just watch and they’re open to that. You can take the weirdest idea you’ve ever had and do it at The Hero Show, and it’ll probably go over really well.
At the first show we did at the China Cloud, I got a cheap door and had it onstage with a curtain around it. I opened the show by doing a monologue through the door to my girlfriend, who was really mad and wouldn’t let me in [. . .] I got scared that she was dead because she wasn’t talking to me anymore, so I axed through the door, Shining-style, and that’s how the show opened.
Those are the things you can do at The Hero Show. People come ready for and open to anything, so it’s nice. It’s a safe place for people to try new things and not worry about getting heckled on stage.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone trying to break into the Vancouver comedy scene?
Go out to as many shows as possible, introduce yourself to as many comedians as possible, do as many open mics as you can, and get comfortable. But don’t expect to be put on the shows you want to be on right away. It’s about immersing yourself in the scene.
The next Hero Show is happening on June 18, and the next Matterhorn Improv show is on June 30. Both shows are at The China Cloud.
