Comedian Matt Falk coming to Steinbach for Homegrown

The late great Robin Williams once said, “Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they’ve got nothing to lose.”

Now that you’re in a good mood, I’ll put you into an even better mood as comedian Matt Falk is coming to Steinbach for the Steinbach Arts Council’s Homegrown event where he’ll share his life stories and its funnier moments from the past year.

“I’ve been really happy with the show. Audiences have found it relatable and fun, which has been great for me. I’m going to try some new stuff and ultimately, I think that the goal is – above everything else – is that I want that audience to be laughing the entire time,” he said.

Falk has been honing his skill for the past 20 years. What started out as a way to deal with his anxiety and ADHD as a child by making people laugh to get attention and a dopamine hit, turned into a full-time career.

According to his IMBD page, he is a comedian, writer, and actor. His Dry Bar Comedy special has millions of views online and three of his comedy albums reached number one on the iTunes comedy charts.

He has made people laugh at The Ha!Halifax Comedy Festival, The Winnipeg Comedy Festival and the prestigious Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. He was named one of the “Best of the Fest” at the Burbank Comedy Festival in California and he placed second in The World Series of Comedy in Las Vegas.

Falk said he learned how to be a stand-up comedian by watching other stand-ups like his idol Robin Williams, Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres, and John Panette.

While Falk has honed his instinct as to what might be funny, it’s not an exact science. He analyzes each joke to see how he can improve it and if the audience will like it. He referred to audience approval as a dance where he can’t succeed without them.

“Otherwise, it’s just me alone screaming into the void,” he said jokingly.

But when a joke doesn’t go well that’s when Falk’s anxiety kicks in, especially earlier in his career, so much so that it would put his brain into panic mode and all creativity would be lost.

“So, you stop coming up with ways to save the joke and you just start talking faster. Or you stop making sense. Or you kind of do something that maybe you really wish you wouldn’t have done. Your negative instincts just kick in,” he said, noting it was COVID that helped him learn to live with the silence during stand-up as he was doing shows via Zoom for audiences online whose mics were on silent.

“And now, I know if a joke doesn’t work, I can stay calm and I can still save the show. Just because there’s one joke that doesn’t work doesn’t mean this bit or this section or the whole thing isn’t going to still be good,” he said.

Falk’s inspiration comes from things that randomly happen to him or things he thinks about or is frustrated by. He said emotion is the key in finding that unique point of view to make something funny.

Audiences enjoying what he is saying also inspires him to keep talking about a topic in a joke.

Falk is known as a clean comedian, in that he will not use profanity or blue content, but that doesn’t mean his comedic take on things won’t be controversial.

“It’s sometimes fun to find an avenue that people are a little bit anxious about. They go, ‘Oh, what’s he going to say here?’ And then once you come up with a really clever joke about it, and they laugh, the laugh is usually bigger because laughter is basically just tension released.”

“Comedians don’t want to offend. Comedians want to make audiences laugh. That’s kind of a weird misconception, but it’s true,” he stressed.

What he loves most about comedy is that it helps people relate to the world better and come back stronger. He also loves the “nerdy” aspect of constructing a joke and how it makes people laugh.

He said it takes him anywhere from a few minutes to write a joke to years in perfecting one. Falk’s first one-hour comedy special took five years to write, but now it only takes him one year.

He has also written for the stage and screen, most recently for the limited TV series Maria and the Mennos. He said writing for theatre and television is all about the story and requires character development and character motivation, whereas a joke can be inserted anywhere in a set and be funny.

Homegrown takes place at the Steinbach Cultural Arts Centre on Nov. 13. Tickets are $40 and can be purchased on Steinbach Arts Council’s website. Opening for Falk will be local comedian Joel Brandt.