In a roundabout kind of way, Sophie Buddle seems well suited to headline Comedy Kitchen, the stand-up showcase that opens Whistler's premier food and wine festival, Cornucopia.
Not only because her forthcoming debut album is called Edible, either. The Vancouver comic recently left her job at a juice bar, only to convince the meal-planning service that moved into the same location to bring her onboard. ("I showed up and said, 'Hey, I used to work here. I know where the dumpsters are. You should hire me.'")
And while she didn't have any food jokes on the ready for our interview, she's confident her repertoire will appeal to the culinary inclined who tend to frequent Cornucopia.
"I mean, I have jokes about thinking I'm fat, which is basically a food joke," she says.
If you're not steeped in the Vancouver comedy scene, you could be forgiven for thinking the 23-year-old is a newcomer to stand-up, but considering she already has eight years of experience under her belt, she's in many ways a veteran of the scene.
"I've cemented my place. It's less nerve-wracking now," she says.
Buddle faced those nerves head-on as a wide-eyed teenager who decided to try her hand at stand-up after checking out an amateur night with her mom at an Ottawa comedy club.
"We did that for like a year before I even considered doing it," she recalls. "It's a lot less intimidating if you're going to amateur nights than if the only thing you've seen of comedy is Seinfeld. You see a lot of people fail, and you think, 'Well, I can fail.' You realize that the bar is not crazy high."
Only thing is the then-16-year-old Buddle wasn't legally allowed to perform in the bars and clubs she was landing gigs at, so she told bookers she was 19. This forced her to tackle subject matter that wasn't exactly in the wheelhouse of a high-school sophomore.
"I didn't have very much life experience," she concedes.
"I was trying to talk how I thought adults talked, so it was not funny. I was just like, 'Oh man, sex is weird. Am I right, everybody?' But I didn't know."
Since then, it's safe to say Buddle has grown into the art form, becoming one of the stalwarts of Vancouver's tightknit comedy scene. She's played Montreal's iconic Just for Laughs Festival, was a SiriusXM Top Comic finalist, and also writes for CBC Comedy.
Headwound Productions founder Tara O'Doherty, who is producing Comedy Kitchen, happened to catch an unbilled Buddle on a show in the city this past winter that sent her on a months-long goose chase.
"She dropped a whack of jokes, and I was like, 'Who is she? She must come to Whistler,'" O'Doherty says. "She's a hard girl to get a hold of, so since December, I've been talking to other comics about how to get in touch.
"Vancouver is a tight comedy family, so it's nice when you can give comics some exposure up here."
Joining Biddle on the show is MC Colin Sharp and Ontario transplant Mayce Galoni. The three know each other well from Vancouver comedy circles, and Buddle says it will be something of a "fun, little Whistler roadtrip" for the gang.
Comedy Kitchen kicks off at 9 p.m. on Nov. 9 at Buffalo Bills. Doors at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20, available at whistlercornucopia.com.
Buddle will be recording her first album at The Comedy Mix in Vancouver on Nov. 28 and 29.
