Tom Stade Totally Rocks!

Once upon a time Tom Stade learnt if he said a filthy line slow enough in his cool Canadian drawl, threw a few ‘mans’ and profanities into it, and knowingly addressed it to an incongruous front-row punter, he’d leech great belly-laughs from an audience. It’s a striking style that’s kept him gigging for years. But lately this belligerent barfly act has run aground at near-outright offense. In Tom Stade Totally Rocks! it becomes apparent; to properly enjoy Stade’s standup, you must be as drunk as he appears. 

The show’s premise is an hour-long gawp at the sorry state 17 years of marriage has left Stade in; sexually, socially, and, unfortunately, comically. Much of this set could be an indictment of his marriage. Stade’s lively over-share of his sex life begins merely bawdy then turns foul enough to incite a few walkouts. More leave as Stade, seemingly testing the ropes of audience toleration, describes the “funny situation” of encountering a man with down syndrome while stoned, in a piece not saved by the comic’s own family experience of the disease.

The set subsequently wanders to more safely staid areas of Groupon, swearing children, and the inanities of hiring a skip. Yet as the filth dries up so does Stade’s energy, and he loses the intonation that made his delivery so initially magnetic. 

A later-scheduled show might have gleaned Stade the lairy crowd he requires, but there’s no betting by that time he’d have material enough to maintain the cool-guy caricature.