By Larissa Page
Picking up on his life shortly after his first book Son of a Critch ends, Mark Critch, Canadian comedian and cast member of the satirical Canadian news show This Hour Has 22 Minutes, gives us An Embarrassment of Critch’s. He describes this as “Immature Stories from my Grown-Up Life,” and it really is exactly that.
Son of a Critch is one of my favourite audiobooks, so when I saw that this sequel was being released, I knew I needed to listen to it as well. Critch returns to deliver us a very similar comedic memoir to his first but this time he focuses on his early adulthood through to the present day.
After graduating high school, he decides that he wants to be an actor (to which his father of course responds, “Good God”) and manages to luck out by getting a job in Trinity, a tiny Newfoundland town a few hours from where he grew up. From Trinity he works his way through some years of acting and unemployment until the next job comes along and he finally gets his big break writing—and eventually becoming the roving reporter—for This Hour has 22 Minutes.
Critch recounts his many trips to surprise, interview, embarrass, satirize, and do sketches with various politicians (Canadian and American), and the different situations they lead him to. From trying to do a phoney interview with Bono, to planting a Canadian flag in the Red Square in Russia, to doing a performance during a rocket attack in Afghanistan, Critch conveys all the stories he has with hilarity.
I truly enjoyed listening to this audiobook. I think I still enjoyed Son of a Critch more (simply because I enjoyed the childhood stories), but I found this follow-up equally hilarious, deeper than comedic memoirs sometimes are (giving us more of a look inside Critch’s life), and very well written and narrated. I laughed out loud a few times at his jokes and at imagining some of the situations he got himself into.
The pairing of Son of a Critch and An Embarrassment of Critch’s is so good, especially for east coast Canadians who might relate to stories about Newfoundland. Anyone who enjoys political satire will appreciate the backstories Critch tells about the sketches and interviews he’s done, as they get an inside look at how politicians act behind the camera. Both of these memoirs are worth your time and your laughter.