Chris Robinson is one of Canada’s fastest-rising comedy stars. That status was cemented when he took home the title of SiriusXM’s Top Comic at JFL42 on September 29th.
It was such a great night.
I hosted it, last year’s Top Comic Derek Seguin opened the night, Tom Green headlined and absolutely everyone who took that stage went up and smashed.
I get being bummed out about not winning but I hope everyone’s proud of what they did on stage that night. It was impressive as hell from beginning to end. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – as good as we are at hockey, we’re even better at comedy.
I got a chance to catch up with Top Comic winner Chris Robinson recently and asked him a few questions.
Ben: What was the first thing you bought with the money?
Chris: First thing I bought was a matching salt and pepper Roots tracksuit for me and my newborn baby.
Ben: What does the title mean to you?
Chris: To me the title is a stamp of approval that I am a funny comic. Comics always have low self-esteem and always doubt their own talent. So now if I eat shit on a show I can at least say to myself, “Well no one else here won 25k talking about wanting to play with puppies.”
Ben: You had a lot of family there including your 12-year-old nephew – are you officially the coolest uncle ever now?
Chris: I’ve always been the coolest uncle. I hold it down with trips to the movies and go-karts. But having his first show that he saw me perform live at be a big theatre with a bunch of people cheering for me felt amazing.
Ben: What’s next?
Next, I’m going to use this to get in with more clubs across Canada. Hopefully, get some more writing gigs. Going to take some acting lessons and make a voice demo too. Most importantly I’m going to put money towards getting a US visa, so I can struggle near palm trees as opposed to struggling in a blizzard.
Very humble answers from one of the most talented people in comedy I haven’t known many comics who work as hard as Chris does, this guy grinds and grinds and grinds.
How did he get to be Top Comic? Years of practice and crashing any and all open mics from comedy to music to even poetry nights. Chris just needs a stage and a mic and he’ll take care of the rest.
The title is in good hands.
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