The Toronto Theatre Review: Scott Thompson unleashes Buddy Cole in a razor-sharp solo comedy born from a little unfinished business.
By Ross
Scott Thompson has spent a good many years figuring out exactly which buttons Buddy Cole can push, and how hard. Or has he? With The Last Glory Hole, the iconic ‘Kids in the Hall‘ character has found himself a new stage and a fresh supply of grievances to unleash. Arriving at Toronto’s Factory Theatre for its world premiere, he stands before us with a martini in hand and absolutely no intention of mincing his words. The show’s origins are rooted in a particularly satisfying act of revenge, after a number of new Buddy Cole monologues were censored or cut during the 2022 ‘Kids in the Hall‘ reboot on Amazon Prime. Writer and performer Thompson has taken that material and run with it, serving up a series of raunchy, ruthless monologues that send Buddy on a globetrotting journey through international waters, with modern social sensitivities and political correctness squarely thrown overboard. And judging by the wicked grin on his face, he is having the time of his life watching them float away.
“You startled me!” Buddy gasps as he welcomes us into the last glory hole, his bar in the “saddest city in North America.” With a martini in hand and a captive audience before him, he prepares to take us on a sprawling journey through his many escapades, including a rather eventful riverboat cruise down the Nile, where denial is clearly not part of the itinerary. No one is safe on this journey, “not maids, Muslims, or moi,” as Buddy dares us to follow along on his righteous romp, which apparently has only fifty knee bends left. You’ll either get the joke, the camp, the references, and the deliberately provocative sensibility (and almost everyone in the audience does wholeheartedly), or you won’t. And if you don’t, perhaps this isn’t the show for you. Where have you been hiding, anyway? Under a holier-than-thou rock?
Buddy declares that everyone in this city will die one day, “but maybe not me.” “I’m eternal,” he announces with all the confidence of someone who believes whispering the word vermouth to a martini is enough to guarantee both good taste and immortality. His spiritual quest takes in cheap sex, queer campfire stories, fabulous musical and film references, and a steady stream of observations about the human condition, from foreskin and furries to alien anal probing and the curious anxieties surrounding pronouns, as described by the friendly ideas of “gratitude” and the “circle of fear“. Thompson’s physicality is every bit as mischievous as the marvelous writing, with a suggestive sashay, a well-timed hip tilt, those two limp wrists, and the gleeful declaration to us all that he is having “too much fun.” When he declares, “I leap to my feet like a boy of fifty,” the result feels like its own small miracle of the Nile.
Buddy Cole has always been a fabulously sharp caricature of the unapologetic queen, and Thompson understands the character’s particular raunchy rhythm down to the last raised eyebrow. The jokes arrive with a knowing wink and arched eyebrow, but that doesn’t mean every one of them lands comfortably. A few venture into territory that risks punching down at marginalized people, particularly trans and disabled individuals, and I had several moments of face-planting groans, shaking my head at the fact that he had actually gone there. The audience, though, swallows it all with the same enthusiasm Buddy brings to his onboard escapades. For the sake of our humanity and humility, let’s just call it cheap tequila, knocked back in one gulp. This is all part of the show’s peculiar deal with the devil. Buddy also develops a rather hilarious attachment to the word ‘recently,’ repeating it at the beginning of so many stories that we begin to wonder whether the joke is on us or simply on the word itself. A later exchange involving an apology to aliens opens up a rather pointed question about who deserves an apology here on Earth. The show doesn’t offer a tidy answer, and its refusal to behave itself is very much part of the evening’s performance.
Beneath the martini-fuelled outrage and flamboyant posturing, a wise psychotherapist eventually gets through to the person behind Buddy Cole’s carefully constructed persona, much to Buddy’s apparent surprise. Suddenly, the queen gives way to the king beneath the crown, and the T-shirt-clad Scott Thompson, the actor who has been there all along, waiting for his moment, steps into the light. Under Ed Roy’s assured and snappy direction, this encounter gives Thompson room to reveal something of himself, while the lighting design by stage manager Matt Hallworth helps bring that carefully cultivated transformation into focus.
Don’t arrive expecting enlightenment, or even a particularly gentle evening at the theatre. No, ma’am, but there is real pleasure in watching a performer reclaim material that was once deemed too provocative and deliver it with such gleeful conviction. I have my own reasons for appreciating a little revenge on Amazon, a company I personally try to avoid at all costs, and Thompson certainly gives us a satisfying opportunity to enjoy his. Buddy Cole may insist that he is eternal, but his greatest gift is the ability to make an audience laugh, squirm, and occasionally question its own appetite for a joke. Let’s all raise a martini glass to the last glory hole, and to the loose-lipped queen who still has plenty left to say.