Stuart McLean
Monday, November 28, 2011
Royal Theatre, Victoria
The Vinyl Café with Stuart McLean jumped out of the radio and onto the stage at the Royal Theatre in Victoria at a recent event that combined readings, music, and other festivities. The show was part of the annual Christmas concert tour, which will make over a dozen stops across the country before settling in for the season.
For guests who’d only ever heard the soothing tones of McLean’s voice on their Sunday-afternoon CBC, the live version may have seemed at once completely familiar and strangely foreign.
“You don’t look how I thought you would either,” joked McLean to the audience. Yet, the unfamiliarities came not from the look, but from those elements impossible to experience through the radio.
McLean’s storytelling, while engaging on the airwaves, rises to another level with gestures that cannot be called gestures so much as a dance, a dance that accentuates practically every word.
The organic flow of the show gave way to unexpected hilarity when McLean invited a 13-year-old audience member, Frankie, up on stage and was forced to compete for the spotlight with the young man’s dance moves.
And, this being a Christmas concert, the audience couldn’t help but feel a warm and fuzzy, festive glow with the help of Hawksley Workman, who belted out songs about soup and the first snowfall.
For the finale, after Workman had sung his heart out and some classic tales had been told, McLean shared a brand new “Dave” story, these stories being a signature in the writer’s repertoire. It was funny and heart-warming, relatable and nostalgic.
The new story, and, really, everything about this night, had all the things McLean’s audience has come to expect and all the things they love about The Vinyl Café.