The crowning of Canada’s Got Talent stand-up comedian Courtney Gilmour
“You go out at night thinking, ‘Either this brand new joke I'm proud of will go well or I will have a mental breakdown and second guess everything I've ever known in about an hour.”
Although it was my birthday last week, I need to talk about My Guy’s birthday, which we celebrated in early April. The small affair included two of his adult children and their partners, his soon-to-be 90-year-old sassy mother, My Guy, and myself.
I didn't want just another PG-rated family dinner.
I wanted to do something fun and R(ebecca)-rated! Mostly, I needed a good laugh, the kind of laugh where you beg, “Stop, stop, you’re going to make me pee!”
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour,” Charles Dickens once said. I needed laughter more than ever!
So…
I hired a stand-up comedian, Courtney Gilmour, to perform a private R-rated show just for the six of us after our PG-rated dinner. But I had no idea this comic I hired was famous, being a participant in Canada’s Got Talent (or CGT).
I admit, I had had a brutal week leading up to My Guy’s birthday, which came also hot on the heels of Will Fucking Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars, after Rock made a pretty arcane joke about his wife.
As you can read here, truth can be stranger than fiction! I mean, who saw that slap coming?
I wanted, and needed, to laugh as hard as if I had shoved some cannabis-infused birthday cake into my mouth. I was taken aback by the power of offensive jokes made by comedians — many who are extremely talented writers — and whose sole job it is to make us laugh at the absurdities of life.
Here’s a chart that captures my sense of humour:
In fact, sometimes I do feel like people should be thanking me for all the totally inappropriate and somewhat offensive posts about Things That should Not Be Joked About that I don’t post.
I think one of the best qualities I have is that I love to laugh and joke at Things I Find Funny, which is why I am going to hell so you don’t have to. (But you probably will, because I can be fucking funny!)
For a few days after the Will Smith slap at the Oscars, the world was not divided by race, gender, culture, or religion, but between those who can take a joke and those who can’t take a joke.
Anyway, I digress! So, I tried to find and hire the most offensive hilarious comedian online. As soon as I saw Courtney Gilmour’s photo on Gig Salad and watched one of her clips, I knew I absolutely needed to book her.
I didn't book her because Courtney Gilmour was born with missing hands and her right leg amputated below the knee, though most of her performances do indeed centre around her experiences as a congenital triple amputee.
I’m joking. I totally hired her because she’s a comedian who happens to be an amputee, born with missing hands her right leg amputated below the knee, whose performances mostly centre on her experiences as a congenital triple amputee.
Oh, if I’m using ableist language, I apologize. And if you haven't been offended by this post yet, with my sense of humour? Don't worry! I'll get to you shortly.
“Roll Up the Rim is a tough season for me,” she joked in one clip.
"There are perks of being an amputee. I never have to get coffee for a bunch of people. I’m never the coffee run girl… Can I do it? Yeah. But who’s going to ask? Who looks worse? The guy who sends the girl with no hands to go out and get eight large Americanos or the barista who gives them to her? And then I ask for [coffee] sleeves and it gets confusing,” she also joked.
“My favourite part of having a disability is watching people’s reactions in real-time. I take Ubers a lot and I was in one recently, and the driver turned and looked and me and asked, ‘Do you mind me asking what happened to your hands?’ And I said, ‘Oh nothing. I was actually just born this way.’ And he said, ‘Oh, that’s interesting. My sister has back problems’…I was like, unless your sister’s back problems have caused her to lose a lifetime of rock paper and scissors, don't get it, don’t get it at all” she joked here.
She also joked that “My vibe is more like ‘girl who is late to the party because she put moisturizer on her arms and spent the next 25 minutes trying to open the front door.” All the CGT judges were not only laughing ridiculously hard at this. They all gave her a standing ovation!
And apparently, many Canadians agree she is funny AF, since she made it to the finale of Canada's Got Talent — Citytv’s most-viewed original series in more than a decade!
The judges, including stand-up comedian Howie Mandel, were all laughing as if they had eaten a piece of cannabis-infused birthday cake (am I making you crave any yet?). All the judges’ expressions on their faces read, “I can’t believe she just went there!” while they laughed hysterically.
Which, in my opinion, is exactly the expression I want to have on my face when watching stand-up comedians.
Listening to Courtney Gilmour made me realize I haven't laughed so hard since March 21st, 2020. Though, let’s be honest, most of us probably haven’t.
“We’ve always thought that for babies to be happy, healthy, and normal, they have to have 10 fingers and 10 toes, and then I came along to stir shit up," she joked in this article she wrote a few years ago. “Even I have my moments where even I am impressed at how well I can shave my armpits… I don’t want to brag or anything, but you put me and a Gillette razor on America’s Got Talent, I’m getting the golden buzzer, that’s for sure,” she also joked. (I highly suggest coming back to read more about Courtney Gilmour, her childhood, and her road to becoming a comedian here.)
After she finished, I asked for her contact to ask her questions about the craft of comedy writing, which you can read in the below Q&A. I also asked, holding cash in my hand to pay her, which I tucked in her person, “How would you have taken this money if I didn’t put it in your purse or coat jacket? Would you have taken it with your teeth?” I joked to her on her way out.
Courtney, who refers to all of us who happen to have arms as “Handdies,” which I think is pretty hilarious, did laugh at my joke. (Again, if you haven't been offended by this post yet, with my politically incorrect humour, don't worry! You just have an underdeveloped or nonexistent sense of humour. I'll get to you shortly.)
Guess what’s not a joke? Our gal Courtney made it as a finalist in tonight’s finale of Canada’s Got Talent. Please, take a break NOW to watch and vote for Courtney here. The winner gets $150,000.
Tonight’s finale spotlights the show’s final eight performers — four selected by judges and four voted in by viewers. Voting opens tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT at Citytv.com. The winner will be announced just before 10:00 p.m. ET.
Simon Cowell, who created the “Got Talent” franchise, will be a guest judge, alongside regulars Howie Mandel, Trish Stratus, Lilly Singh, and Kardinal Offishall.
The bulk of the finale was taped this afternoon, and the show will go live just before 10:00 p.m. for the announcement of the winner (So, again, go vote now, because there's only a small window!)
And Courtney also had a #WillSmithToo-like moment once. In the middle of performing on stage, during one of her punchlines, an audience member “gets up and comes over to me on the stage and lifts me up, puts his arms around me and lifts me up into the air,” she said.
“I think he was drunkenly so happy and he didn’t know how to express it. So this very bizarre idea came to him that I should just, like, show my gratitude for this comic by lifting her up in the air like Dirty Dancing. That was really crazy.”
Check out this hilarious clip of Courtney’s comedy routine that made the judges howl after you read below. You can watch clips of some of her other hilarious routines here.
No joke: The creative crazy craft of comedy writing with Canadian comedian Courtney Gilmour
RE:BOOKS: How long have you been a comedian, and how did you know you wanted to be one?
Courtney Gilmour: I did my first show in 2008 and puttered around with open mics at the time, I've been making a career out of comedy for around eight years now. I'm not sure I ever really knew I wanted to be a comedian; it was a slower realization for me than most. I've always had a good sense of humour and fondness for comedy, but it wasn't until I was a few shows in, just trying stuff on stage for fun, that I considered pursuing it more seriously.
RE:BOOKS: Can you take us through your writing process before doing a show? Do you write the jokes and memorize them?
Courtney Gilmour: I'm very much a 'written' comic, meaning I prefer to have all my ideas fleshed out in a Google doc or somewhere before I test them on stage. Writing material is an ongoing process, it's not really something you stop or start; it's just part of the whole thing about as much as performing is. I write whenever I have a few minutes during the day, or sometimes, I'll get together with another comic to bounce ideas off of each other, but for the most part it's just kind of like whenever I think something is funny I'll add it to the list of other ideas I think are funny and hope I'm right about at least a few of them.
I like to write out in full paragraphs every angle of the joke that I think could work and then condense from there. I don't memorize a scripted version of the joke, but I'll include phrasing I think is funny.
A piece of advice I read that has helped me significantly is to "always go with your fifth or sixth idea" when writing about any subject, especially popular ones or trending topics. Because most people making jokes about the same thing are having the same first ideas come to mind. Giving yourself time to think harder allows for a more original and creative take.
RE:BOOKS: Where or how do you get your inspiration for jokes? How do you know how it’s going to “land” with audiences? Or is it a crapshoot?
Courtney Gilmour: I guess just my personal life and observations. I talk a lot about my interactions with people, my family, etc., so I suppose I spin very regular encounters into anecdotes about what I was thinking of in those moments. I never fully know if a joke is going to land until I try it.
Sometimes I'll write something I think is so hilarious there's no chance it will bomb and I'm right. Other times I'm very wrong. The longer you do comedy, the more familiar you become with certain types of audiences, and so it does get easier to strategize, but you still can't be 100% — that's the adrenaline rush of trying it out for the first time! You go out at night thinking, "Either this brand-new joke I'm proud of will go well or I will have a mental breakdown and second guess everything I've ever known in about an hour."
RE:BOOKS: Many people don’t think about the fact that comedians are also writers — exceptional writers! Do you practice in front of friends or other comedians? Do you consider writing jokes/routines an art form? (I do!)
Courtney Gilmour: Yes, I think comedy writing and performing is art. I don't really practice performing in front of anyone, it doesn't feel natural for me to rehearse something that I feel I can only tap into on stage. That sounds kind of pretentious maybe, but I don't like to do anything that makes me feel like I'm acting. I'm a bad actor. I don't even like sound checks. Once I know what jokes I'm going to do I just trust myself to be energized enough on stage to perform the way I think the jokes should be performed.
RE:BOOKS: Can you tell us a bit about your experience on Canada’s Got Talent, how you got there, and what it’s been like so far? Where can we vote for you?
Courtney Gilmour: Canada’s Got Talent has been a wild ride, very fun. I sent in an application during the peak of the pandemic and didn't really expect anything to come from it. Not for any reason other than I knew the volume of applicants would be high and that it's a show that features many different talents. It's been exciting and a creative challenge for me to be in the show; I'm so happy that my comedy has been well received so far — the support has been overwhelming. I've been having a lot of fun and just doing my best to represent myself and what I do well. The finale of the show will be live on May 17th, and I suspect there will be some twists and turns! I made it to the semi-finals, which people can check out on May 3rd at 8:00 p.m. EST on Citytv, Citytv.com, or on the Citytv app. From there, it's up to Canada what happens, so for voting and stuff you gotta tune in tonight!
RE:BOOKS: I think stand-up comedians really have the hardest jobs. How difficult is it for you to write jokes? Or does it come naturally? (Were you a born storyteller?)
Courtney Gilmour: I was not a born storyteller, I was born long-winded and tangential. I went to school for creative writing and when I started comedy, I really had to learn how to trim the fat and be less flowery. The upside to that, though, was being a quick learner with joke structure.
I consider myself a writer first, performer second. Or at least the performative part of me was a muscle that needed flexing, creative energy that hadn't been explored. It comes more natural now but certainly needed development. I get told pretty often now that I have good stage presence and timing, and I think I appreciate that more knowing that it was successfully learned over time.
RE:BOOKS: What’s it like hanging out with other comedians — what do you talk about? I once met Jerry Seinfeld after a show. And he was so insecure! Are most comedians actually insecure (like authors and writers)?
Courtney Gilmour: Comedians are all kinds of things, insecure certainly rings true, but I think that's just a natural byproduct of having a career that relies on audience approval night after night. By now, pretty much all of my friends are either comedians or adjacent to comedy somehow or in the entertainment industry, so I don't know that I really think of it as anything special, but it's nice to have people to talk to who understand what it's like to move through the world with this profession. Hectic schedules, lulls, mental health issues, stuff like that. Also, I'm really grateful to say that I'm friends with some of the funniest people in the country, honestly. It's a joy to watch people you're close to thrive in this business.
RE:BOOKS: How do people, including your family and friends, think about you being a stand-up comedian? Do they consider it an actual “job?” (FYI, my daughter who is at Tufts University joined the stand-up club, and I couldn’t believe her confidence on stage! I’d be super proud if she decided to do it full time. Saw another side to her that I never saw!)
Courtney Gilmour: That's awesome! Stand-up definitely brings out an exaggerated persona in us that I think we've always known we had but is surprising to other people. My family and friends are incredibly supportive. I've been doing it long enough now that I think they can breathe easy knowing I actually pay my bills with comedy, but of course at the beginning, they were a little nervous.
I only started inviting my parents to big theatre shows, so I think for a while they thought that was my whole job — fancy theatres and big lights every night. I didn't give them a glimpse of the dank basements performing to drunk strangers who got in with a Groupon code. Sometimes you gotta let people believe the illusion.
RE:BOOKS: Which female comedians have inspired you?
Courtney Gilmour: I love Tig Notaro a lot, Taylor Tomlinson, one of my Canadian favourites is Nikki Payne, who I've worked with before and she's so kind and funny. We have incredible female talent in Canada, and I'm proud I get to be around it night after night.
RE:BOOKS: (In my head: Don’t say it. Don't say it.) Break a leg! (I said it! Obviously, I’m attempting a joke!)
But if you want to book a professional who will surely make you laugh, you can book Courtney Gilmour — laughter RE:ALLY is the best present — by heading to www.courtneygilmour.com or check her Instagram here. Or book her through her email.
Until next time, flip your hair and flip the page!