Life's a Stage for Local Comic

The Kingston Whig-Standard
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Page: 22 / FRONT
Section: Entertainment
Byline: Greg Burliuk
Source: The Kingston Whig-Standard

Ben McLean discovered comedy in a peculiar place: Shakespeare's glum and terrifyingly bloody play Macbeth. At the time he was in Grade 10 at Bayridge Secondary School. His teacher, Mike Bullett, cast him in the role of the drunken porter.

"It was the only funny part in the play," McLean says.

Encouraged by his teacher, McLean joined Bullett's improv group and, after he graduated from Bayridge in 2000, moved to Toronto to study with the famous Second City troupe. Now he's part of the sketch comedy trio Boiled Wieners, which will perform its latest show, Hot Lips, Cold Cuts, tomorrow and Saturday at Theatre 5.

McLean had been considering going to theatre school while still in Kingston. He appeared in a couple of Theatre 5 plays but director Charles Robertson told him to go to Second City instead.

In Toronto, "everyone else I knew was living in residence and going to university and I was taking these classes at night and working during the day," says McLean, who found that his beanpole frame - he's six-foot-one and weighs 140 pounds - gave him a comedic edge over others.

Boiled Wieners had been in existence for a short time when McLean joined. The other members are Melanie Hunter and Paul Snepsts.

"The three of us were cast in a sketch show and we all got along really well," McLean says. "So we thought: Why not get together and see if we could speed things up and see how far we could go with the sketch format? The three of us have a similar sense of humour and although we never had any set number of people in mind, it just worked out this way."

That was a year ago and since then they've produced a show called Romancing the Wiener, upon which Hot Lips, Cold Cuts is based, and have just released their first CD, Wieners Around The World.

Although he comes from an improv background, McLean prefers the scripted approach to creating sketches.

"At Second City they said to use improv, but I like to come into rehearsal with my stuff already worked out."

Since McLean and Snepsts both play guitar, there is a fair amount of music in the show. One song is best described as the socialist approach to lovemaking. Another is about an '80s pop duo trying to record a soundtrack for Disney's The Lion King.

"But the songs they're offering up don't go terribly well with the movie," McLean says.

The show has a song about the perils of seaside romance, sketches about the origin of the game Rock, Paper, Scissors and the adventures of Croatian brothers adjusting to life in Canada.

The trio is getting steady work. They just returned from the Chicago Sketch Festival and after the Kingston date, there are gigs next week in Ottawa.

UPCOMING EVENT
What: The Toronto comedy sketch group Boiled Wieners presents their new show, Hot Lips, Cold Cuts. One of the trio's members is Bayridge Secondary School grad Ben McLean. Opening will be local group New City Improv.
When: Tomorrow and Saturday at 8 p.m.
Where: Theatre 5, 370 King St. W. Tickets: $10. Call 546-5460.

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