Indie comedy grows in Manchester

When he last was in Manchester, Shane Torres appeared at Shaskeen Pub. In 2021, it was one of the few places in the city for his brand of comedy. Since then, though, the scene has grown. Comedy at Queen City Center began in April, Strange Brew Tavern’s Laugh Attic has a good groove going, and now a theater district coffee bar is in the game.

Early returns are more than encouraging. The Moka Pot, near the corner of Elm and Hanover, has two shows with Seattle comic Bo Johnson on April 12. The early set sold out weeks ago, with only a few tickets remaining for the late one. Coming up are Aaron Berg (July 31 and Aug. 1), Brendan Sagalow (Aug. 8) and Robby Slowik (Aug. 21).

The Moka Pot is ready, with a recently issued liquor license and new LED lighting array. Alex LaChance is the venue’s comedy booker. With fellow comic Nick Sands, LaChance also runs the game show parody Wrong Hill to Die On at the Shaskeen, which returns for a third time on July 14. The first Wrong Hill event sold out, and the second came close.

The day after Johnson’s show, Torres will appear at Queen City Center. The laconic Texas native has had a lot of success since his last visit. His first special, The Blue Eyed Mexican, came out at the end of 2023. Vulture praised its “beautiful directness and keen sense of good storytelling,” calling it “a refreshing combination of delicate and obscene.”

Torres’s other recent credits include The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, though he didn’t get the McCartney treatment when he appeared, as Colbert was out of town that night. The host pretaped introductions for him and a few other comics. “Sadly, it was not the version I’d dreamed of,” Torres said by phone recently. “No couch, no Stephen.”

Another late-night talk show helped elevate Torres in 2017. He appeared on Conan O’Brien and went viral for defending shock-haired Food Network host Guy Fieri. It was 10 years ago, but the bit still follows him around, and he professes to be at peace with his “Free Bird” moment.

“I don’t do that bit anymore, but sometimes people will call for it,” he said. “Like, I was in Seattle doing Fremont Abbey, a really cool room, and somebody yelled something about Guy Fieri. This other guy shouted, ‘That’s how I heard about you,’ and another one said, ‘Me too!’ So I have that to be grateful for.”

He and fellow comedian Katherine Blanford’s Coastal Idiots podcast stands out in a crowded field. The two “frenemies” have a delightful Odd Couple banter well-suited to Torres’s laid back demeanor. Recurring bits include a contest to guess the sale price of various works of art, some museum worthy, others county fair castoffs.

Torres balances all this with incessant touring.

“Last year I did something like 250,000 miles, and that was just on Delta,” he said. “Not even including riding on a tour bus for a few weeks, or driving from Chicago to Milwaukee to Madison to Minneapolis. The only mileage accounted for is just through the Delta app.”

He’s looking forward to coming back to Manchester, recalling doing many shows at the Shaskeen when it was booked by Nick Lavallee, who’s now in charge of Queen City Center’s comedy events, and will also be opening up his Wicked Joyful retail store in the Canal Street facility on June 20.

Torres enjoyed hanging out with Lavallee in the Shaskeen days.

“I always had fun there,” he said. “Nick is a friend; he’s an old indie rock kind of punk rock guy like me. That’s the kind of culture and stuff he came up in as a kid. So we had a little bit of that in common.”

Along with the success Torres has experienced since his last visit is a newfound desire to savor it more, including when he’s back in New Hampshire.

“I will appreciate being in this place more presently,” he said, adding, “There’s a difference between logically knowing you’ve moved forward … and feeling it, recognizing it and appreciating it.”

Torres’s next big career milestone happens after his Manchester show. In August he’ll head to the legendary Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where he’ll perform his one-man show, tentatively titled Skinned Knees. The show is about his mother’s coma and his father’s homelessness, framed as comedy about what home means and what masculinity looks like.

“It’s going to be terrifying,” he said, adding that he hopes people will find laughs among the show’s poignancy. “I’m afraid people are going to be like, ‘You’re brave!’ And I’ll be like, ‘and funny?” That’s a real fear, but also a self-deflating (and funny) joke in his statement, a combination that is the Shane Torres essence.

Bo Johnson
When: Friday, June 12, 9:30 p.m. (7 p.m. show sold out)
Where: Moka Pot, 8 Hanover St., Manchester
Tickets: $25, eventbrite.com

Shane Torres
When: Saturday, June 13, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Queen City Center, Canal Street, Manchester
Tickets: $25, eventbrite.com ($30 day of show)

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.