Comedian comes home, virtually, for special fundraiser

It’s a bit misleading – but very very funny.
“I’m a bit of hillbilly” professional standup comedian Rebecca Reeds confesses to her audience in “Buddy,” her debut CD.
“People always think I have an accent…that I’m from somewhere cool,” continues Reed, who grew up in Lindsay and still has family here. “They always ask, ‘Where’s that accent from?’ And I just tell them it’s from a lack of education.”
The audience laughs long and heartily. But that joke, fuelled through self-deprecation – a standup’s staple – is a bit deceiving, too, when it comes Reeds, who is part of the Kawartha Lakes Food Source’s annual comedy fundraising show scheduled for March 17. (conducted live on-line this year).
Sure, there’s some funny fodder in past fishing trips with her dad – which include the requisite beer, because “you gotta drink like a fish to think like a fish.” But along with the hilarious bits mined from back-home anecdotes, there’s also more socio-political observations, including a nicely crafted joke about how gender pay inequality influences her personal wardrobe choice.
That marrying of homespun with the erudite is what helps set Reeds’s comedy apart from many of her peers.
“I do feel like I’ve found mine,” she tells Advocate Podcast host Denis Grignon about that elusive comic voice – that point-of-view that shapes everything from a standup’s material to their stage persona.
“I heard this idea that (your voice) just kind of switches on for you…that there’s really nothing you can do to make it happen other than keep (performing),” she recounts in the most recent of the podcast. “And then one day you’ll get on stage and you’ll say, ‘Yes, this is it. This makes sense.’”
Grignon, a veteran standup comedian in his own right, first met Reeds when he was performing at a comedy club in Ottawa about 10 years ago. Reeds, the former IE Weldon grad and student council president worked part-time as a server at the club while attending university; she was also an amateur night stage up-and-comer.
“Her act was good from the get-go,” Grignon says of Reeds, who has played the esteemed Winnipeg Comedy Festival and tours the country. “Smart material, likeable stage presence. She’s not an up-and-comer anymore. She’s arrived.”
Listen to the interview with Rebecca Reeds, along with some of her standup, in episode 25 of The Advocate Podcast: Stories from Kawartha Lakes, brought to you by Ward Lawyers. Subscribe for free on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Rebecca Reeds performs in a special virtual comedy show in support of the Kawartha Lakes Food Source March 17.Tickets are $22 per household and available via eventbrite.ca