BY DAVID DeROCCO dave@gobeweekly.com  https://twitter.com/?lang=en 

It’s said laughter is the best medicine. If that’s true, then there’s an awful lot of people who’ve never gone to a comedy gig going cold turkey. Thankfully, the HOMECOMING KINGS – a.k.a. comedians Dylan Gott and Peter White – are heading to The Sanctuary to help get people back on their meds!

“A lot of people don’t even know what it’s like,” said White, referring to comedy club virgins who’ve yet to be seduced into their first one-night stand up comedy tryst. “I’ve met a lot of people who come for the first time who hadn’t before because they’re scared. They think they’re going to be made fun of or they’re going to be uncomfortable. They think it’s like it is in the movies, which is just a comic making fun of people in the audience, which is not what it is. I wish people would give it more of a chance.”

With their Homecoming Kings tour, White and Gott have combined forces to hopefully inspire both diehard fans and comedy-curious newbies out to experience a night of great Canadian stand-up comedy. Both comics have just returned from a working tour of the U.K., and their decision to team up for the Canadian tour was made for a rather simple reason: necessity.

“We wanted to do a bunch of better gigs,” laughed Gott. “We’ve both worked comedy clubs and bar gigs but there’s only so many times you can perform at a Boston Pizza. People there are like, ‘wait, there’s a comedy show happening,’ and then you start talking. That’s where the Sanctuary comes in. We saw the venue, we reached out and we got in there.”

The show at The Sanctuary teams up two of Canada’s veteran stand-ups; White, a former writer for ‘This House Has 22 Minutes,” has performed in over 25 countries and racked up numerous appearances in the Halifax, Winnipeg and Just For Laugh’s comedy festivals. Gott, on the other hand, is a Canadian Comedy Award nominee who has had his own televised special and hosted a radio show on SiriusXM. The diversity of their styles means there’s going to be a lot of great content, but Gott says none of it will get too heavy.

“There’s not going to be any big issues tackled here,” said Gott. “My set will mostly be me mocking my wife and then explaining to myself why I’m an idiot. Peter’s the one with some real opinions.”

Despite the sensitivity existing in a world divided by the extremes of left and right wing politics, Gott suggests being a stand-up comic in this era can still be enjoyable if you know how to play the room.

“I think it’s a great time to be doing comedy despite the sensitivity. You really have two people, it’s a binary thing now. There are people who think you should be able to say anything you want, and people who think you shouldn’t be able to say anything. As a comedian it can be divisive, but you just play to one of those two groups. Or you can be like me and talk about having indigestion for 45 minutes and essentially skirt the whole issue completely. I don’t think it’s hard to be a comedian whatsoever. I think people just have to watch what they say, that’s something that should be done anyway.”

White agrees with taking a pragmatic approach to reaching an audience with his comedy. “I think there’s a right way to talk about everything. You can’t be as lazy as people used to be. The era of kicking people when they’re down is done. You can’t just pile it on. You have to be careful about opinions and thoughts, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

The Homecoming Kings show is a 19+ admission. For more details, visit: https://www.thesanctuaryarts.org/events.