"A sizzling start to Theatre on the Ridge’s 2024 summer season."

“Punch Up,” a winning offering, gets Theatre on the Ridge’s 2024 season off to a sizzling start. The producers dallied to see what might happen despite the hot, sticky, and inclement weather encroaching. Happily, “the show must go on” attitude prevailed, the weather held, and the play went up.


This fine remounting of Kat Sandler’s production from Ridge’s 2022 season returns with the same cast but a deeper connection to text and timing. This urban fairy tale/tragicomedy about three misfit loners in a hostage situation pushes the limits in this life-or-death comedy lesson, showing just how far you can go for a laugh!

The uber-talented cast of three certainly delivers the delightful goods. Duncan (Landon Nesbitt) has always been dull, leading a simple life while working at a bread factory. He stumbles upon Brenda (Karly Friesen), a sad young woman about to end her life. Convinced he’s fallen in love, Duncan strikes up a desperate deal: if he can get her to laugh, she'll give life another shot, but if she doesn’t even giggle, he'll help her go through with her plan.

There’s just one catch: Duncan isn’t funny. Not even a little.

He “borrows” Pat (Henry Oswald Peirson), his second-favourite comedian, to help him come up with the perfect routine. The problem? Pat is having a hard time mustering his sense of humour after a bad break-up. The last thing he wants to do is teach a lonely loser the difference between knock-knock jokes and one-liners while chained to a table.

Kat Sandler’s witty and gleeful script is a 90-minute romp that leaps and bounds through topics like suicide, alcoholism, and life's meaning. Her gift for naturalistic dialogue and colourful characters gives director Carey Nicholson and her cast all they need to take this little charmer and pull so much out of it.

The pace is manic as washed-up comic Pat tries to get the naïve Duncan to understand comedy and find it in the tragedy that is his mundane and lonely life. Pace and timing keep this show speeding along; this cast understands that. Their timing and physicality never miss a beat – not even the oppressive humidity could slow them down!

Although the action and dialogue are rapid-fire, the acting demands on this fine trio of performers cannot be overstated. Their chemistry is palpable (the fact they performed this show together only two short seasons ago helps), especially between Landon Nesbitt as Duncan and Henry Oswald Peirson as Pat. They run around the stage (which seems quite large with such a small cast) in almost dance-like unison, keenly in tune with each other’s space and motivations. Enter Karly Friesen as Brenda, and the dynamic changes. Her interactions with both men change their outlooks and desires in a way neither thought possible.

Oswald Peirson nicely portrays Pat as angry and aggressive with a vulnerable, pensive side. He’s the comedian who’s lost his mojo and isn’t sure if he’ll ever get it back. Landon Nesbitt is a whirling frenzy of non-stop energy, portraying Duncan as both a psychotic dimwit with a syrupy-sweet fakeness and a harmless man pretending to be a killer. He does both instantly and convincingly.

The contrasting physicality of both men is something to note. Oswald Peirson is clumsy and gawkish, blundering around the set, while Nesbitt flits around the stage like a kid on a sugar high. His boundless physicality while zinging one-liners in his bright clown-like costume reminded me of a young Robin Williams. Karly Friesen, as the morose and suicidal Brenda, keeps our rapt attention as she records flawless monologues, making her succession of bizarre tragedies more believable.

Director Carey Nicholson adeptly handles the characterizations. For the most part, the blocking is solid, using almost every available space on the elevated stage. Her minimally- furnished basement apartment set sits dead centre. At the same time, ancillary scenes are played at the downstage corners and even on the ground in front, denoting changes in time and location. The only time this is unclear occurs when Duncan pleads with Brenda not to jump off the building. Additionally, the drugging of Paul is difficult to see, being played so far upstage.

Regardless, Nicholson clearly had a lot of fun with her capricious cast, never letting them go too far above board, risking coming off as cardboard cutouts. Though their situation is farcical, these characters have dimensions and a story that needs to be told. I enjoyed the 2022 production, but this time around, I found a deeper connection to the actors and the narrative. Perhaps because the pandemic is further behind us, or maybe the tent venue contains performance energy more effectively than open air. I’ll go with the latter.

Michael Williamson’s lighting design nicely offsets the setting sun's shadows by providing an even wash on the stage while giving impactful spotlights and moving instruments for colour and depth. Lyle Corrigan’s music design is appropriately lively. His pre-recorded comedy club announcer at the top of the show is a hoot.

It was wise for Theatre on the Ridge to re-mount this production. It’s funny. It’s hectic. It’s a crowd-pleaser. It explores the nature of humour and the relationship of comedy to tragedy. If you want to punch up your understanding of laughter and love this summer, you should hotfoot it over to Theatre on the Ridge.