Scott Thompson Rips Into GLAAD in Blistering New Show
The out comedian revives Buddy Cole to confront queer censorship and cancel culture in "The Last Glory Hole."
Ask Scott Thompson, a Canadian, what he makes of President Donald Trump’s shocking proclamations that his nation become the 51st U.S. state, and his answer is swift and furious.
“It offends me to the very essence of my being,” he growls, his previous jovial demeanor darkening. “The moment it started happening, people thought it was a joke, and I immediately went, ‘I don’t think it’s a joke. He means it.’ What he did was he let the genie out of the bottle, and you can’t put it back in. And where we’re going from here, I don’t really know.
“But in a strange way, it’s been good for Canada,” he continues. “Because some of the things he says are kind of true, in that we have piggybacked on the Americans. We have hidden behind the Americans. We have allowed Americans to be in charge of our defense. And I think Canadians now are coming together and going ‘You know what? Fuck you.’ I think what we’re going through is kind of a long, protracted divorce.”
The simmering rant goes on for a few minutes longer before Thompson stops mid-sentence, blinks, and, in true, polite Canadian fashion, offers a puppy-dog-eyed apology: “Pardon me. I’m sorry.”
Thompson is currently touring the states as his most iconic creation — Buddy Cole, an ultra-inappropriate, “flamboyant gay bar fly.” The 65-year-old out comedian doesn’t want to reveal too much about The Last Glory Hole, other than to say it settles some scores with Amazon’s Prime Video and GLAAD on behalf of The Kids in the Hall, the wickedly acerbic, inventive comedy sketch troupe Thompson remains a part of.
“I don’t know how much I want to get into it here, because I get into it in my show,” says Thompson, recalling difficulties the troupe had with Prime Video in 2022 when creating their six-episode, ridiculously funny reboot, which is still streaming on the site. “But let me just say that the censorship that we went through was probably the worst we’ve ever encountered, ever. It just came from a different direction.”
A different direction? “It came from the left,” he explains, specifically, GLAAD. “I loathe them,” he says. “I think they should be eliminated.”
The issue is that GLAAD, in tandem with Amazon, says Thompson, forced the troupe to cut 14 sketches from the series before it aired — and half of those were Buddy Cole monologues.
“They wouldn’t allow Buddy Cole to be in the series. Everything I did was rejected — I had seven monologues rejected!” Thompson is still sore over it.
“The truth is Amazon was a very difficult experience,” he says. “It probably, for me, was the worst experience I’ve ever been through in show business. And I was so angry at what was happening that I had to wait a number of years before that anger became comedy,” resulting in the current one-man stage show.
The Last Glory Hole “begins as a traditional Buddy Cole show. I begin with revenge, and then I end with victory. Buddy takes my revenge and turns it into comedy.”
Thompson was surprised by the attack from the left. “The Kids have been around long enough to see things shift from one to the other in terms of restrictions,” he says, “and that was a mind-blowing thing to go through.” Still he’s proud of the 2022 series.
“Yes, there would’ve been probably outrage over some of our material,” he admits. “There would’ve been controversy, and that would have been good for us. That would’ve allowed us to reach the young generation, which we wanted, but we were handicapped by the censorship. They kneecapped us so that that could not happen. And that makes me sad, because we would’ve negotiated it properly.
“I mean, we’re okay with people being outraged, but this outrage would have come from the other side — the left — and that was not allowed. I think the reboot radicalized me. It changed me on a cellular level.” So he’s now happy to let Buddy do the heavy lifting of setting the record straight, so to speak.
“I can’t imagine this show not catching fire,” he smiles, “because I’m dropping some bombs.”
Scott Thompson performs Buddy Cole in The Last Glory Hole on Wednesday, June 4, at 7:30 p.m. at The Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., in Alexandria, Va. Tickets are $39.50. Call 703-549-7500 or visit www.birchmere.com.
For additional tour dates, visit www.newscottlandland.com/live-events.
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