It could be that comedy clubs aren’t really your scene, or perhaps you’re just looking for new comedic venues to explore. Whatever your inclination may be, The Jenn Hayward Show is worth bringing to your attention. On July 5, local comic Jenn Hayward launched her official YouTube channel, The Jenn Hayward Show, a production which she describes as “a way to promote Ottawa culture with a comedic twist.”
Hayward began doing stand-up comedy in Ottawa about five years ago. She loves the storytelling aspect of comedy and the way comedy allows the performer to control the flow of the crowd. Hayward explains that there’s a lot of enjoyment from creating something that people respond to immediately, where she gets to see people’s reactions. “You get an immediate gratification,” she says.
Despite this love for stage performance, the plan to create a YouTube comedy show entered into the works about six months ago. Hayward, as a stand-up comic, was searching for new venues to work her comedic magic. She explains that she was beginning to find that the target audience for her comedy wasn’t necessarily made up of the people who frequented comedy clubs these days , which is why she embarked upon a project to make her comedy accessible to a larger audience. With the help of a talented team of videographers, sound technicians, and social media coordinators, The Jenn Hayward Show has now moved from the conceptual to a much more tangible form.
The show takes the style of a talk show, involving a variety of segments such as “Jenn Gives Bad Advice”, conversations with local businesses, and twitter contests. At their current rate of production, a new episode is being released on her YouTube channel every two weeks.
Unlike a live performance, the online nature of The Jenn Hayward Show means that it isn’t possible to interact with the audience at the same time that they’re viewing the show. However, Hayward doesn’t want to lose that aspect of her performance. So, each episode she runs a twitter contest (with prizes!) to initiate interaction between herself and the audience. In the pilot episode, she encourages the audience to donate some kind of canned food to the Food Bank. Except for canned peas because “Nobody likes canned peas. It’s gross, they’re smelly, and they need to be stopped”. Under the hashtags #cannedpeasyay or #cannedpeasnay, she asked the audience to vote on twitter to determine the fate of canned peas. (I agree with her; canned peas are terrible. No one should have to eat them.)
Hayward is excited to see the show grow well past its first season. Check out the episodes on YouTube, or visit the official website.
