The town of Gibsons will be in the national spotlight when CBC TV’s eighth season of its Still Standing program starts on Jan. 4.
The inaugural half-hour episode of the season, which chronicles resilient Canadian communities, will feature interviews and comedic observations gathered by show host Jonny Harris during a spring 2022 visit to the community.
In a series of vignettes, Harris examines the shifting fortunes of the Sunshine Coast fishing and log salvage sectors. Through an interview with members of the Coast’s Filipino-Canadian Association, he learns about the region’s cultural diversity. His conversations with a local restaurateur and brewer lead to a sanguine conclusion: that the Gibsons economy is regaining its footing through innovation and entrepreneurship.
“We want to feature survival stories,” said Harris in an interview with Coast Reporter. “Gibsons was sort of an interesting pick for us because there has been a dramatic decline in the fishing industry there, and the whole isolation thing with being a ferry ride away from the mainland. That’s both a headache and a blessing at the same time, I guess.”
The show’s format features Harris’s interactions with local residents, interspersed with short segments from a live standup comedy performance — filmed in the Elphinstone Secondary School gymnasium — into which he weaves wry observations and liberal use of wordplay.
“I usually do about 35 to 45 minutes of new material about the town and about the people that we’ve met,” said Harris. “I guess maybe 12 or so minutes make it into an episode. You don’t really know how good material is until you get it in front of people. Of course I have the benefit of the fact that my material is about these people and it’s giving some credit to the community. So people are already on my side, which sort of takes the sting out of doing new material.”
Harris has performed regularly at The Halifax Comedy Festival, The Winnipeg Comedy Festival, and on CBC Radio’s The Debaters. He has appeared as both a stand-up and sketch comic at Montreal’s Just for Laughs Festival. The Newfoundland-born comedian has led Still Standing to win five Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Host in a Factual Program/Series in 2019.
He recollected watching a few episodes of CBC Television’s Beachcombers series as a child, which led to a sense of déja vu when visiting its iconic Molly’s Reach location in person. In Still Standing, Harris interviews Stephanie Heins, the restaurant’s co-owner, about legacies of the long-running Beachcombers drama.
In a segment about maritime commerce in Gibsons, Harris visits former prawn harvester Pam Robertson and log salvagers Jennifer Passmore and Erik Hammond. All three concede that prospects for their type of work have diminished.
Harris is candid about depicting challenging circumstances. “You’ve got to give struggle its due, and I don’t think I’m not selling anything short in the comedy department by doing that. A story of struggle is inherently more interesting than one that lacks that. And I like to be saucy. I like to be cheeky.”
Mercy Campbell, the president of the Sunshine Coast Filipino-Canadian Association, and Sara Parsley, of the Persephone Brewing Company, also appear in the program.
Season 8 of Still Standing will premiere on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023 at 8 p.m. on CBC TV and will be available to watch on the free CBC Gem streaming service.
Other B.C. locations featured in the upcoming season include Ucluelet and Okanagan Falls.
