Rachel Manson is a Montreal-based comedian, writer, and producer known for her sharp wit, bold stage presence, and candid storytelling. With a background in theatre and a flair for the absurd, she has performed across Canada and internationally, quickly earning a reputation as a standout voice in the comedy scene.
How would you describe your comedy style?
Over the years, I think I’ve finally crystallized my style down to the following: A lanky bisexual ADHD chaos gremlin. I’m a physical comedian, I love wearing outfits onstage that accentuate my comically long limbs and compulsive flailing. I love climbing up onto the stool onstage and perching like a gargoyle or hiking my foot up onto the top of the stool, the front tables, or the head of a man dragged there against his will. What I’ve become most known for is talking about bisexuality, polyamory, ADHD and growing up the awkward theatre kid who won the bible award at her religious high school and prayed for everyone to like her. Ironically, as any comedian will tell you, the less I cared, the better my comedy became. I can now say I’ve never been more myself onstage. Having done stand-up since I was 19, audiences learnt who I was alongside me. I can’t wait to figure out more about myself that I don’t even know yet, alongside 100 random strangers.
Who are some of your influences?
We are living in such an amazing time for stand-up comedy. Not if you want to make money off of it or have a job, that I can say has never been worse, if you want money go to trade school I’m dead ass serious. But in terms of what creatively performers can do, what boundaries can be pushed through performance, what audiences will hop on board for, is ever expanding and an absolute honour to watch. Anyone who says comedy has gotten too “woke” or you “can’t say anything anymore” is probably just blinded by an almost horny desperation to say their favourite slur. George Carlin and Lenny Bruce would punch you in the face without thinking twice. In fact, they literally did.
I come from a theatre background, so it feels almost performative and basic to say, but performers like Phoebe Waller Bridge, Hannah Gadsby, Tig Notaro and Maria Bamford, I believe have altered how we expect performers to communicate in such a fundamental way, that it broke through the core of what solo performance even is. I watch all of them whenever I’m stuck.
Who was your favourite comedian growing up?
I used to rent Steve Martin’s Live performance in 1979, Gilda Radner’s 1980 Gilda Live, Ellen DeGeneres’ stand up specials (controversy noted), and full seasons of Saturday Night Live from the video store every Friday night. I was a bit of a gawky awkward tween with big theatre kid energy and undiagnosed ADHD (I tried to get diagnosed, but at the time I was a girl in the early 2000s and was not a 9-year-old boy, therefore it was medically impossible I had it). I soon discovered if I committed these bits to memory and recited them, beat perfect, I had a niche. I had a stage. The cool girls in my summer camp cabin would have me perform them for the girls, and all of a sudden, I was funny. I knew I wasn’t yet, Gilda was, Ellen was, I was a good mimic. But I was dying to become more than that.
I was very lucky to live in a comedy-loving home growing up. Films like Airplane! and Monty Python’s Holy Grail were staple rentals. My dad would watch alongside me and explain cultural references from the 70s and 80s that would go completely over my 13-year-old brain. My favourite thing became not just watching comedy geniuses at their best, but watching other people watch them. I would take note of when my parents and sisters and friends would burst into laughter, and chronical them like an alien trying to find the formula for funny. The best was when it was completely against their will, I still think magic lives in that moment.
Who is your favourite comedian now?
Maria Bamford, Chris Flemming, Jenny Slate, Kathleen Madigan, Sarah Silverman are always my go-to favourites.
I struggle to put into words the level of Canadian comedic talent across the country. It far surpasses most scenes I have encountered, and I have travelled across the states and Europe doing this crap. It’s a shame Canada does not reward their comedians with actual paid opportunities, so the best of our best are forced to leave for the States. Especially now, that is getting harder to do. SO YOU CAN HELP: Support your local comedy scenes. Find your favourite comedians and follow them on socials. Share them with your friends. Watch the New Wave of Stand Up on CBC, go to Comedy Bar in Toronto, visit the comedy clubs in your city, find the ones online that speak to you and your experience. I promise you, they’re out there and they are incredible.
If I start naming them, I’ll never sleep a night again because I’ll be thinking about who I missed on the list, so find them yourselves, I can’t do all the friggen work.
What is your pre-show ritual?
I tell myself I am going to arrive 15 minutes early, as comedy producers desperately beg us to do every single time we perform. I promise this time, I’m going to make it happen. So, at about four minutes to show time, I run into the venue with my shoes untied and a half-eaten burrito in my purse. I order one crisp Coca-Cola, only to discover that being on the show came with drink tickets and I didn’t have to pay in the first place. I write in my notes app the five bits I want to try that night, and I only get to three because the crowd is too good to risk it. I walk off stage, give the producer a hug, and smoke half a joint standing outside thinking about how cool I must look smoking and how much that sucks and I shouldn’t think that way. I tell everyone I’m going to leave, stay for another 45 minutes shmoozing, then I go home.
What is your favourite place you have performed? Why?
Last year, I performed at an adult queer summer camp, the most beautiful place in the world in rural Ontario. It’s a place for queer grown-ups to go and experience the outdoors, games, drag, campfires, singing, dancing, swimming and probably making out. It had been a year since I blew my life apart to try and live more authentically, and I performed my longest set to date about becoming the queer, poly, crazy nerd I now was living as. It felt like coming home. I now go there every year to perform, so make sure to follow A Queer Camp on Instagram!
Also performing at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto to a sold out 2,350 people/over-excited TikTok moms was like the most intoxicating drug I have ever experienced. If they sold that feeling in a vial, I would be in BIG trouble.
What is your favourite bit you have written and why were you proud of it?
My favourite bit is the name of my album, “Third Most Improved”. It refers to when I was a kid at summer camp and had my first kiss when I was 14. I proceeded to vomit all over my bed in a social anxiety-infused panic attack. When I was 16, I became a staff member and was able to participate in camp family feud, where my sister was voted hottest in camp and I was voted third most improved. It brought me so much joy then and now, and represents my transformation in every form. I love it.
What is your favourite medium for listening or finding new comics/comedians?
GO. SEE. THEM. LIVE. Go see them live. Even if you like them on TikTok, that TikTok was filmed at a physical place where they said those things in a room to real life people. Look them up. See where they are performing. And go. support them. live.
Do you have anything to promote right now?
My album, 3rd Most Improved, is coming out July 24th with Howl and Roar Records. It will be on Spotify, iTunes, the internet, more of the internet, where sounds come from. Please buy it, stream it, post about it, tell your mom about it, tell your friends’ moms about it, I don’t know, I tend to do pretty well with moms.
Where can we follow you?
PAY IT FORWARD: Who is another local comic/comedian we should know about?
James O’Hara and Bren D’Souza are two of my favourite joke writers in the world.
