TIGNISH
Jonny Harris says he and the crew of CBC’s hit TV series, Still Standing, had a weak time in Tignish.
He’s obviously picked up on some of the local sayings.
“In Tignish,” he explains, “if you’ve had a great time, you’d say, ‘I had a weak time.’”
It was such a weak time, in fact, that CBC has chosen the Tignish episode to lead off Season Four of the show. The season premiere is set for Tuesday, September 18.
Harris’s stand-up comedy part of the show was shot at the Tignish Parish Centre.
Community members will gather there again this Tuesday for an advance screening of the season premiere at 7 p.m. The show airs on CBC at 8 p.m.
It was Tignish Initiatives’ general manager Anne Arsenault who reached out to the producers about bringing their cameras to Tignish. “They did a really good job of capturing the essence of the community in the short time that they were here,” she said in describing what Harris incorporated into his live show.
She’s now eager to see the finished product and to gauge the reaction of community members in attendance for the screening.
Another local saying Harris picked up on during his visit is actually a line from Stompin’ Tom Connors’ The Song of the Irish Moss: “You can hear them roar from the Tignish Shore, ‘there’s moss in Skinners Pond.’”
Through Still Standing, Harris tells the story of small towns in Canada and how they overcome struggles. The demise of the Irish moss industry is part of the Tignish story and Harris meets Joe Dorgan who is turning seaweed into livestock feed.
Harris also sees how the area is counting on the Stompin’ Tom Interpretative Centre in Skinners Pond to help boost tourism.
“People in Tignish would like, for a change, for tourists to turn left when they come over the bridge and see the western part of the Island,” Harris commented during a telephone interview with the Journal Pioneer.
“I think the interpretation center for Stompin’ Tom is going to do a lot for that; I think it has already been quite successful last summer and this summer. They’ve done a bang-up job with the place.”
CBC led off Season Three last year with the Ft. McMurray, Alberta story and this year shifted east to Tignish.
“I thought the spirt of the place was quite impressive,” Harris said of Tignish, a co-op and fishing town of 717.
“The whole motto of the show is laughter in the face of adversity, and we certainly found that in Tignish. The audience there was great,” he said. “I could tell right away people there were up for having a laugh.”
Doors at the parish centre open Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free and all in attendance will receive ballots for chances at winning door prizes. The hall was packed for the stand-up show last October and Arsenault is counting on a big crowd Still Standing, Tignish style.
“It’s huge,” Arsenault said of the show’s potential for the western P.E.I. town, “because it’s a huge audience that gets to see the community in a good light.”
