Bowser & Blue promise laughter in Hudson

BY BARBARA LAVOIE

Bowser & Blue kick off Hudson Village Theatre’s second half of their season line-up with their latest version of melodic comedy and salty satire. Their four-show stint will run from Feb. 8 to 11.

Keeping their annual Valentine’s Day weekend rendezvous in Hudson, the comedy and song duo promise a show packed with lots of new material alongside what everyone in the English-speaking community over the years has come to expect of them — a chance to laugh and let loose.

“Hudson audiences are great,” said Blue during a phone interview. “It’s pretty hard to offend them — they are people, who just like us, want to laugh and have a good time. We enjoy playing there. It seems like home.”

Perhaps a true sign of how close Bowser and Blue are to being considered members of the Hudson family is revealed by the fact that neither Blue, nor Carolyn Flower, Hudson Village Theatre’s director of marketing and promotion, can recall exactly how many years they’ve been doing this Valentine gig.

Blue believes it’s been “at least a dozen years.” He recalled the theatre’s “tent days.” Flower simply says, “Every year they head to Hudson around Valentine’s Day giving people a chance to catch their performance locally.”

The duo’s latest performance tour has taken them to Western Canada, specifically the province of Alberta. “They can’t get enough of us out there,” added Blue, a Beaconsfield resident.

As for this year’s material, you can count on a healthy dose of political puns, particularly with Bowser’s recent acclamation to municipal politics as a Westmount city councillor and Blue’s run for office in Beaconsfield.

“Politicians are regular people too, and we all make politically-incorrect, racist, sexist, homophobic comments from time to time. It’s good to laugh at the dark side of things,” Blue said.

“We have a few new songs — that’s something I really enjoy doing. Seeing a song evolve into something that begins as a germ of an idea. There will be a few live births of that sort on stage.”

In addition, Blue noted, some of the recent comments made by Lucien Bouchard on the nature of Quebec workers “are bound to sneak in there.”

Sure to strike some universal anglophone chords, they plan to revive some of their earlier work on “blokes” that “no-one has heard for a long time,” along with “some songs on Montreal.”

Nominated for a Gemini award in 1997 for their Christmas show Two Nuts Roasting on an Open Fire and regular performers at Just For Laughs, Montreal’s International Comedy Festival, Bowser & Blue have been a comedy musical act since 1978.

On several occasions they’ve performed at Sussex Drive — for former prime ministers Jean Chrétien, for his 65th birthday, and Paul Martin. As playwrights they collaborated with cartoonist Terry Mosher and columnist Josh Freed to create and perform The Four Anglos of the Apocalypse in 2005 and 2006. As songwriters they produced The Illustrated Canadian Songbook in 2003. Visit www.bowserandblue.com">www.bowserandblue.com">www.bowserandblue.com for some pre-show belly laughs.

Bowser & Blue tickets are $29. Shows are at 8 p.m. Thursday to Saturday with a 2 p.m. Sunday matinee. Dinner/theatre packages are also available with participating restaurants. Purchase seats by calling 450-458-5361 or book online at www.villagetheatre.ca.">www.villagetheatre.ca.">www.villagetheatre.ca.