Everyone was watching centre stage, empty except for a wobbly bar purchased from Facebook Marketplace. The Algonquin Commons Theatre was still in anticipation, no one knowing they’d soon see a puppet swear at a kid in the audience and belittle a married couple on a date.

In the calm before the chaos, Canadian comedian Adam Christie opened for Randy Feltface to the sound of raucous cheers from the crowd.

Feltface, a purple puppet created by Australian comedian and puppeteer Heath McIvor, has been making appearances in stand-up performances, live television and radio since 2005.

Tickets to see the award-winning puppet at the college on Nov. 28 quickly sold out, prompting the addition of a second show at 9:30 p.m.

Christie and Feltface have been continuously performing on the Gimmick World Tour that will span into 2026. Their show at Algonquin College was their second of three Canadian stops, before heading to Montreal and back to the United States.

In honour of this being their second-last Canadian show, Christie used the opportunity to try some new material.

Gauging the audience’s laughter, Christie would decide which jokes made the future cut — though there was rarely a moment where the crowd didn’t respond positively.

Christie touched on a range of topics, from trying to afford a house in Toronto, and realizing “There’s no world in which I can do that,” to being divorced.

Christie also shared his inspiration for starting comedy: his late mother, who made him promise to write a stand-up set after she died and to vote for Trudeau in a federal election.

“I couldn’t break two deathbed promises,” Christie said to the crowd, who burst into laughter.

After Christie’s set, the crowd hollered, both to support the comedian and to coax Feltface to begin his material. The dimly lit bar on stage commanded the theatre as the anticipating audience howled in excitement for the headliner.

And then he was there.

Not at the bar, but in a video projected on the stage’s screen. Feltface was delivering some terms and conditions for the audience: there is no filming, photography or phones allowed, and everyone must be respectful to the other audience members.

Right as the video finished, McIvor ran out on stage wearing a Randy Feltface head, dancing to the crowd’s cheers and an original song before Feltface took his place behind the bar on stage.

Feltface’s set focused on gimmicks; how they’ve evolved, or regressed, and how people have sacrificed their lives in the name of a gimmick.

Feltface named Michel Lotito as an example, a French entertainer with a particularly thick stomach lining who ate a Cessna 150 aircraft over two years. He’d also eaten bicycles, door hinges, shopping carts and his Guinness World Record plaque awarded for having the “World’s strangest diet.”

Feltface compared the gimmicks of old, like Lotito’s and Houdini’s, to the present gimmicks of 4K-streamed videos and the reaction content to those videos.

Feltface often intricately combined political commentary with his own experiences on tour, saying he felt more like a “war correspondent” than a comedian when retelling some of his interactions with friends and family back in Australia.

Beyond the themes of gimmicks, Feltface called out to the theatre for crowdwork, only to soon realize there was an eight-year-old in the audience.

Rather than shying away from his political humour and explicit vocabulary, Feltface instead included the young audience member in his set, offering free merch and light banter, with their interactions getting some of the biggest laughs of the night.

Instead of pulling risky jokes, Feltface turned to the audience and called, “Don’t pull back from me now.”

“I always really like his crowdwork,” said May Crober, a years-long fan of Feltface’s. “I do like that he kept coming back to the kid.”

Crober’s first time seeing Feltface live was no disappointment.

“I was kind of expecting exactly what we got: a little mix of the raunchier, sillier jokes mixed with the political comedy.”

The set also appealed to Sarah Martin, who accidentally discovered Feltface online. “I enjoyed it a lot,” said Martin before rushing to the merchandise stand.

Lindsay Snider, a fan since 2018, also enjoyed the show.

“I like that there’s a blend of some existentialism and philosophy along with comedy and lightheartedness,” she said. “It’s very broad but also very appealing.”