After admiring her work on CBC for years, I was thrilled and delightfully surprised to hear that the award-winning comedian, actor, activist and playwright Martha Chaves is coming to perform at the Almonte Old Town Hall on November 14. No sooner had I bought my tickets than the organizer of the show, local comedian Sarah Boston, reached out to see if theHumm could help promote the event. It turns out that Sarah has her own fascinating backstory, as well as a dream of creating a more robust comedy scene out here in the Valley.
theHumm: Let’s begin with your background. How did you get started in comedy?
Sarah Boston: I am a veterinary surgical oncologist (a veterinarian who does cancer surgery in dogs and cats), and so I came to comedy a little bit later in my career. I had thyroid cancer, and ended up writing a humorous memoir about having thyroid cancer and treating cancer in dogs and cats, which was published in 2014 by House of Anansi. I’m absolutely fine now, but writing the book made me realize I love humour writing and comedy, and that life is a bit short as well. I was like, well, what am I doing? So I still practice as a veterinary surgeon — about 60% of the time — and then the other 40% I’m doing creative work; writing, mostly, and stand-up comedy.
What brought you to the Ottawa Valley?
I went to Humber College and graduated in 2023 from their comedy performance and writing program, because I’m a bit of a nerd also. My parents have lived in Almonte for a long time, and I ended up moving here two years ago to be closer to them. I’ve always visited Almonte, and loved this area.
Since I moved here, I’ve been to some events at the Almonte Old Town Hall, mostly through the Folkus Concert Series, and I just love the venue. I love Folkus, but every time I go there I think “this would be such a great place for comedy.”
I should back up a little bit. I’m a comic at Yuk Yuk’s in Ottawa, which is where I do most of my stand-up comedy, but I’ve done theatre shows too. I was in the Halifax Comedy Festival this past summer, which was amazing. I love comedy in a theatre as well as in a club. I think the Old Town Hall is gorgeous and the sound is so good, and the community does seem to support arts events. I thought: we don’t really have comedy here, I wonder if I could do it. So I just decided to go for it!
Starting off with Martha Chaves is pretty darn cool. Do you know or have a connection to her, or do you just really admire her work?
Well, all of those things. She was one of my teachers at Humber. She was one of my mentors and a good friend. I did really want to start with her because Almonte strikes me as kind of a CBC crowd — I thought that they would know her and want to see her. And she’s incredible wherever you hear her, but she’s really amazing live. I’m going to have some local comics on the show as well.
The other show is planned for March 13, 2027, and it features Ted Morris, who I think people will know as well — he’s actually also a veterinarian and a comedian. He’s on CBC a lot, and he’s really funny. And as for our local comedy scene — I’ve been thrilled since I moved here, because there are really good comedians in Ottawa and the comedy scene here is very welcoming.
Who else will be performing along with Martha and you on November 14?
Local comedians Lewis Hill and Bobby Knauff will be featuring. Lewis is a Yuk Yuk’s Ottawa regular known for sharp, unpredictable stand-up, who produced Capital Pressings: Volume One in support of the Ottawa Cancer Foundation. Bobby is an Ottawa-based comedian and Humber School of Comedy grad with credits on Much Music, MTV Canada, and Yuk Yuk’s headline tours across the country. Bobby recently performed at Puppets Up! in Almonte with his puppet buddies Andre the Alien and Harold the Sasquatch.
I also want to showcase Ottawa-area talent because I think Ottawa punches above its weight for comedy, and probably other things too, but certainly for stand-up comedy.
Do you have any other plans for the future?
I didn’t want to overload people, so I thought I’ll do one in November, one in March, and see how it goes. And if Almonte’s like, “yes, we love this!” then we’ll keep going. There will potentially be a show in September of 2027 too. My dream is to film a special there, so I thought I’d just book it for September and see what happens.
On that note, what would success look like to you, based on the first two shows?
It would be great to sell out. I believe comics should get paid more than they do, so I want to make sure we pay the artists. That would be success — not really even me making money, to be honest with you. It’s more that I can bring in really good talent, and that all the acts are paid well.
But on the actual night, it would be that everyone has a great time, and people feel good after, and that it brings the community together in a way that I’ve seen Folkus do — that it gives people a reason to go out in Almonte and enjoy being in the Valley rather than having to go into the city.
Following up on that — why do you feel that comedy is particularly important right now?
Well, it is always important and I love it, but my origin story is finding out I had cancer and then finding a way to laugh about it. I think that’s a common thread for me — we need humour, we need laughter, it’s a wonderful way to process everything that’s happening. I think it’s why I got a bit hooked on comedy — there is something about being in a room full of people sharing laughter.
I think now, because everyone is so stressed and things are awful, it’s important to just have a night where you can go out and laugh really hard and shut the world out a little bit — whether you’re laughing at what’s going on in the world or laughing at something else that’s funny. I think it is good for us, and I think it’s good for our community.
That’s another reason why it’s better to go out to live comedy once in a while rather than just putting a Netflix special on.
I couldn’t agree more. I love watching specials — there are so many amazing ones — but it’s totally different sharing that with other people. Sometimes something happens that really would only happen in that moment, and it’s only really funny in that moment for the people in the room.
Tickets for the November 14 Comedy Night with Martha Chaves are only $25 plus fees, available now at TicketsPlease.ca. You can follow Sarah on Instagram @drsarahboston.