Their quirky, audience-participatory comedy has several Picks and Bests preceding its title.
James and Jamesy have earned numerous festival awards for 2 For Tea — and it was even named a finalist for Best Comedy in Just for Laughs.
Next month, the Vancouver/Bellingham and Sunshine Coast-based duo bring the party to Coquitlam’s Evergreen Cultural Centre to celebrate their British characters’ unlikely companionship.
Aaron Malkin (aka James) and Alastair Knowles (Jamesy) created the production, with director David MacMurray Smith, to juxtapose the proper with the absurd.
When James pops around Jamesy’s flat for tea, the event becomes a larger-than-life situation, with the crowd involved in the imagined action.
“Anything can happen,” Malkin told The Tri-City News last Friday, adding, “You know that old British saying ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’? They’re telling you to do it no matter what happens so we’re playing with those tropes because there’s fun in it.”
Despite the silliness, there is a moral to it all, Malkin said: Friends can challenge each other to grow.
As for Malkin and Knowles, the performers met while in community theatre in Vancouver and, for the past six years, have toured their original shows — Thunderfoot, High Tea, In The Dark and O
Christmas Tea — across Canada, the United States and the U.K.to rave reviews.
• 2 For Tea runs Feb. 7 to 9 at the Evergreen Cultural Centre (1205 Pinetree Way). For tickets at $33/$28$15, call the box office at 604-927-6555 or visit evergreenculturalcentre.ca.
