Sara Hennessey has one of the strongest and most confident performing personas in Canadian stand-up. She’s the single gal who can shit-talk with her girlfriends and drink the guys under the table. Her impeccable delivery – she’s got the huskiest voice since Sally Kellerman – gets her through some uneven writing.
Her best material concerns avoiding adulthood, whether it’s nostalgically remembering Sour Balls, worrying how she’ll act when she meets her boyfriend’s mother or wanting to go back to summer camp with all the knowledge and confidence she has now. It’s here that you see the vulnerable woman beneath the laughs, and the material rings true.
She’s a shrewd observer of the urban landscape, describing guys who know how to eat a 7-Eleven hot dog with style, or women who look like they have their act together. Sometimes the writing lets her down, though, as in a line about guns in a bit about Mason jars.
But she’s so swift, she can power through even a bad line or cliched set-up. Listen to her joke about spicing things up in the bedroom she knows the premise is tacky but she goes all in anyway.