I spent this past week on the road with two dear, longtime friends as they needed some cheap labour for their comedy show they’re touring around Ontario. We improvised from Ottawa to Cornwall to Peterborough and back to Toronto. We stayed in Airbnbs, ate at questionable hours, didn’t sleep enough, and drove for days. We performed on nights there was a world series. We danced like monkeys for drunken animals. We took pictures after with the appreciative. We were making comedy in Canada and it was so much fun.
There’s more. This Tuesday, November 4th, 2025, we’re screening all six episodes of a digital series three of us spent the last year-and-half making. It’s called Kensington Diner and it’s at the Paradise on Bloor here in Toronto. It’s about a down-and-out cook who opens a pop-up diner inside his ex’s occult bookstore. Don’t expect Hollywood. It has more heart, it’s more inclusive and it’s more Canadian which is a feature, of course, not a bug.
As I write this, I’m at the library and a bug—a bumble bee—is leading a group of toddlers and caregivers in a rousing game of Ring around the Rosie. Obviously I’ve got something in my eye. That’s why they’re red and misting. Not because I miss the babies. Not because the young men in my house go to school of their own accord. I’m still needed … just in a different, less involved way. It’s fine. I’m fine.
Out there in the hinterlands, outside my comfort zone, I met rural people and city people. The answer is exposure, I’d say. You meet people and then they’re not a stranger/threat/the other. You meet a farming couple married for 45 years. They’re funny and tired. You meet a group of twelve friends that take turns planning a monthly get-together and this month they chose your show. You meet the sister of a friend of yours from Vancouver who was instructed to attend. Which is what I am doing now to you.
Attend the Kensington Diner screening Tuesday, November 4th, 2025. Doors open at 630pm.
I hope you can make it. I want people to see it in the theatre. I’m not as interested in putting it online only for it to disappear into the modern media garbage gyre YouTube is. I wanted to make something people would watch together (and with me). I’m not going for “likes” or selling it or pitching someone with money and then having to listen to their suggestions. I just want to collaborate with the artists. I don’t need anyone’s permission anymore.
Like that bumblebee over there. She’s doing it. She’s dressed as a bug and she’s buzzing around with a bunch of tiny humans. It might not be Hollywood. It’s something better than that. It’s a library in Canada. What a relief.
Paradise Cinema is located between the accessible Dufferin Street and Ossington Street subway stations. The Paradise is fully accessible.
It’s a pay-what-you-can event in support of the West End Phoenix which is also the presenting sponsor.
Tuesday, November 4th, 2025 at 630PM. 1006 Bloor St. West in Toronto.
See you there.
J.B.
