At Vancouver Fringe Festival, comedian Ed Hill gets personal
The Taiwanese-Canadian artist has two entirely different shows hitting local stages, with the Fringe’s Stupid Ed culminating in an Off-Off Broadway residency and comedy-special filming
Ed Hill.
TAIWANfest presents Independently Funny—Ed Hill on September 4 at 8 pm at the Annex
Vancouver Fringe Festival presents Stupid Ed on September 8 at 3 pm, September 9 at 1:25 pm, September 10 at 10 pm, and September 11 at 8:30 pm at the Revue Stage
VANCOUVER-BASED TAIWANESE-CANADIAN comedian Ed Hill recalls a night he and his wife were at his parent’s house and a bunch of old family photo albums came out, including ones with images of him in his teenage goth days. His high-school look—spiky, dyed hair; spike-studded choker; and black from head to toe, including the makeup on his face—is a far cry from his present-day style. It was his dad’s two-word reaction to the photographic mementos of a certain time and place that gave rise to the artist’s new show.
“From time to time I wore handcuffs as decoration,” Hill says in a phone interview with Stir. “I wore them on a family vacation to Hawaii. It’s a tropical vacation, hot as hell, and I’ve got the full getup, ruining every single family photo possible. My wife said ‘It looks like he just walked out of a heavy-metal concert.’ We were laughing. Then my dad sees the photos and goes, ‘Stupid Ed.’ And just walks away.
“But I realized that’s his level of acceptance,” Hill continues. “He was saying ‘That’s who he was, and it’s totally okay. It was a phase and he came to understand what life is about.’ And that’s what I’ve been working on—accepting who I am through these moments. Every single moment may seem random, whether they’re ridiculous or heartbreaking, but they all make up who I am.”
Self-acceptance is the key theme of Stupid Ed, which will have its West Coast premiere at the 2022 Vancouver Fringe Festival. The run is part of a seven Fringe fest tour that will culminate in an Off-Off Broadway residency in the new year. The show will then be filmed to become Hill’s second comedy special.
Stupid Ed is a follow-up to last year’s Candy & Smiley, which takes its title from the names his mother and father chose upon moving to Coquitlam from Taipei in 1994. (“It should be Spicy and Grumpy,” Hill quips.) Hill was the first comedian of Taiwanese-Canadian descent to release a full one-hour comedy special with Comedy Dynamics. Currently streaming worldwide on Amazon Prime and Apple TV, the show made it onto NPR’s Best of 2021 list and Paste Magazine’s 15 Best Stand-up Specials of 2021, aside from other honours. Hill has performed comedy everywhere from Just For Laughs Northwest Comedy Festival to the Hong Kong Comedy Festival. Jimmy Fallon has shared several of the artist’s Tweets on his late-night show. Hill has also released several podcasts, including Model Mythology, cohosted with Aidan Parker and made in response to the rise of anti-Asian sentiment that has been seen since the start of the pandemic.
Stupid Ed is a departure for Hill. With the solo show, he’s diving into more artful and theatrical experimentation than what stand-up comedy stages are suited for.
“It’s not going to end on a laugh—there’s a revelation,” Hill says. “There’s levity in life, but we usually don’t end things on a laugh in life. On the production side, I see this almost as a conversation with somebody….Comedy is the road I’m on, but I’ve definitely realized this show is more difficult to do, because the only person I have to face is me. It brings back different emotions I had in the past, and having to look at those things and face them is not easy.”
Hill was 10 years old when his family moved across the globe. His father had told him and his brother they were simply going on vacation, not uprooting their lives.
“I was a very angry kid,” Hill says. “I had a lot of anger and a lot of resentment, partially because of the stress on the family from immigration but also from acculturation and asking ‘Who am I?’ I had a constant need to glom onto different identities to figure out who I am. When I was 16, I had major mental-health issues—emotional dysregulation and behaviour dysregulation; there was a year where I cried myself to sleep every night.” (There’s a light-hearted moment in the show related to the patches of tears on his bed.)
“I had always regretted having that part of my life and I would try to forget it was part of my life,” he adds. “But now in my late 30s, that’s really a piece of myself and it taught me how to accept who I am. I struggled with vulnerability and loss, and that pain helps me understand other people’s pain and loss.”
While Candy & Smiley could be described as a synthesis of Hill’s parents, Stupid Ed is about his relationships with the women in his life—his wife, mother, grandmother, friends, and ex-partners. “If Taiwan is my father, then Canada is my mother,” Hill says. “In my own family, my father was a portal for me for Taiwanese culture; he’s so connected to it, while my mom has always been very western-focused. She came here when was younger to study, and she’s the one who proposed the idea of immigration. She’s my portal to western society.
“The relationships with Canada and the values I learned here ultimately led to the idea of self-acceptance,” he adds. “What does it mean to love others? You have to love yourself.”
Part of that self-acceptance includes pride in his culture and heritage, something he fought in his youth as a newcomer to Canada. And yet some of Hill’s fondest memories growing up in Metro Vancouver are of going to TAIWANfest every summer. Last year was the first time the multicultural, multidisciplinary fest organized by Asian-Canadian Special Events Association featured comedy as part of its programming. This year, the fest presents Independently Funny—Ed Hill. The comic will be joined in Vancouver by Lukas Purm and Hector Rivas and in Toronto by Norm Alconcel and Danish Anwar. Hill says he’s thrilled to be back on TAIWANfest’s stages for 2022—and not simply because it’s one more chance to do what he loves most.
“To be asked to be part of the festival is such an honour; I grew up going to this as an audience member,” Hill says. “It’s something I can do for the next generation: I hope there’s a kid in the audience who will see that we do matter and our stories matter.”
And while his TAIWANfest offering is more pure comedy than Stupid Ed’s format, there are similarities between the two.
“It’s still me,” Hill says. “I try to bring the most authentic and genuine perspective I can bring to people. My dad has taught me that the best gift you can give to somebody is your time, and if someone’s going to give you an hour of their time, there has to be authenticity and genuineness. I need to be the most human I can be.
“Comedy has always been my medium; I kind of digest things through laughter,” he adds. “If you’re able to laugh about something, there’s a certain level of acceptance you’ve reached and you’re able to enjoy this moment.”
Ed Hill.
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