Born in Oakville, Ontario, Sharon Mahoney began her career at the age of ten in a production of Alice In Wonderland. From 1991 to 1992, she studied improvisational acting at Second City, Toronto, and in 1997 joined an improv group called Spilt Milk in Western Canada.

In 1999, she started street performing, and now has an act called Miss Tallulah and the Ladder of Men as well as the passive-aggressive Sharon From Canada.

She has also worked in Australia, where she was part of the all-female sketch comedy show Quanta Costa, before returning to Vancouver to join the stand-up scene there. She was placed in the top three in the 2006 competition Laff Riot Girls.

She also helps instruct boys with behavioural problems in impov, theatre games and circus skills, and has recently moved to the UK and begun performing on the British comedy circuit.

Sharon Mahoney at the Comedy Stop
Live Review
Comedy Stop

It’s either a sign of national insecurity, or just too many infuriating cases of mistaken identity, but almost every jobbing Canadian comic seems to have a joke emphasising that no, they are absolutely, positively not Americans.

Mahoney doesn’t just have one or two line sabout it, though, but a longish story, set in an Amsterdam swimming baths. It’s jaunty enough, and told with faultless professionalism, but in need of further embroidering to squeeze more laughs out of it. As it is, the segment is entertainingly diverting, but without bite.

Mahoney, who also performs as a street clown called Miss Tallulah, defines herself largely by her nationality, which is limiting, though when she moves off the topic of her Canadianism, the set is even less fruitful. Her routine about centenarians, for example, is rather woolly, and ends in a predictable way.

Yet she’s got a perky, confident delivery and engaging delivery, and a few of the more spontaneous ideas generated in the brief set Chortle saw could easily be knocked into good shape with the aid of a focused eye. But for the moment, appropriately enough for a street act, she seems happy enough to busk it.

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