Smith was introduced by Edgar Wright, director of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (among other things), who was in Toronto working on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  Wright was entertaining in his own right (oooh, that’s a bad sentence), but Smith quickly stole the show once he came on stage.

Smith started with a monologue, rather scattered, but quite hilarious, especially the bathroom story he trotted out to illustrate why he needed to lose some weight.  (It involved a poker game, a massive crap, a wall-hung toilet in a rather less-than-sturdy wall, and the fact that he’s a front-wiper.)

Ultimately, he moved on to why he loves Canada and his most recent Canadian obsession, in the form of Hockey: A People’s History, and — more specifically — Wayne Gretzky.  (Actually, he was rather enamoured of The Great One’s father, too — who my mother met, and inexplicably got me an autograph from.)

Actually, all of the Canadian content may have come out once the actual Q&A session started, as he tended to take quite a while and go on a stream of consciousness-style journey in response to each question.  In the 2.5 hours he actually spent doing questions, he only really got through about 10 or 12, as each question would start him on a long and meandering — but hilarious — spiel, often only tangentially related to the actual question.

One of the early questions congratulated Jason Mewes on his recent marriage, and so Smith brough him out on stage then, too.  Needless to say, this was rather well-received by the audience.  Much of their hilarious interplay was based around Smith’s recent infatuation with using weed, whereas Mewes had cleaned himself up in recent years.

The show ranged all over the place, with Smith and Mewes having iPhone lightsaber duels, inviting the audience in the seats behind the stage to come and sit on the stage (only a actually made it past the staff), bringing out their wives (Jennifer Schwalbach and Jordan Monsanto), Mewes taking over while Smith went to “adjust his pants”, Smith’s views on parenting, and more.

Unfortunately, they were kept to a strict timeline (apparently due to the cost of using Roy Thomson Hall as a venue), and so the show ended what felt like far too soon, but everyone left quite satisfied.  (Well, except possible those people who were at the front of their respective question lines, but never got their questions answered.)  The show was well worth the price of the tickets — if you like Smith’s movies, and don’t mind a continual stream of profanity and dick and fart jokes, you won’t be disappointed in his live show.