George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight

Being in the studio audience of George Stroumboulopoulos This Afternoon Tonight was fun, though I've kinda been there done that (went to the Vicki Gabereau show with my students a few years back). We stood in line nearly an hour & a half before we finally got into the studio in the bowels of the CBC building downtown.

Including a number of jokes about funding cuts, some prizes awarded to the stalkers keeners who answered trivia questions right, the whole event only lasted about as long as we'd been waiting. It was interesting to be there live & see a little of the behind-the-scenes stuff. George is clearly at home in front of 400 people & he's even more of a ham in person than he appears on camera. George's first guest, actress Sandra Oh,  interacted a little with the audience, but guest number two, amputee activist Paul Franklin, just kinda did his bit & left. Seeing the interviews didn't feel that much different from watching it online or on TV. I didn't really feel like waiting in line even longer just to get a posed photo of me & George, so we left right afterward.

Here are the photos I managed to (okay, I admit, illicitly) shoot:

Apparently the red chairs & entire crew were all flown in from Toronto.

The cameraman seemed to be experimenting with how close to the audience
he could swing his boom.

There's George in the red chair on the left & Sandra Oh in the one on the
right. You can just make out half of her behind the makeup lady.