Carolyn Taylor Wins The Gold Medal For Uniqueness With Her Funny and Touching Docu-Comedy I HAVE NOTHING

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede I HAVE NOTHING is definitely something. In fact, it’s something else. With all six episodes of the Crave original docu-comedy series dropping on Saturday, Sept. 23, immediately following a special screening event at the Just for Laughs Festival in Toronto, acclaimed Canadian comedian, producer, and actor Carolyn Taylor has finally reached the conclusion of this odd journey. Or has she? “One would think,” Taylor said with a laugh. “It was supposed to have been just a moment in the car. It was supposed to have been just a moment of inspiration. But the thing just keeps going. So yeah, one would think this is the end, but at this stage, I really don’t know.” To sum it up: Taylor – who is best known to Canadian TV audiences for her five seasons on BARONESS VON SKETCH SHOW – has always maintained her teenage obsession with the 1988 WINTER OLYMPICS in Calgary, and particularly the iconic figure skaters who competed there. While driving her car many years later, Taylor heard the Whitney Houston song I Have Nothing on the radio, with its soft parts and loud parts and pauses and bursts, and thought, “if I were to choreograph a full-length pairs figure skating routine, that would be the perfect song.” So Taylor did the most natural thing for her: she incorporated the idea into her stand-up act. As she performed the imaginary choreographed routine on-stage, audiences would go crazy when she’d land the jumps, and mimic all the elegant figure skating moves. It was very funny, and a fan-favourite … but that’s when things got weird. At some point Taylor made the mental leap to, “what if I did this for real, and turned it into a TV show?” Which brings us to I HAVE NOTHING. “Well, there was no formula, I can assure you,” Taylor said. “I think Mae Martin (fellow Canadian comedian, actor, and Taylor’s good friend) articulates it best early in the series, by saying, ‘it was a great stand-up, but what was she thinking?’ ” The premise of I HAVE NOTHING is amusing on its own, because – and this point can’t be stressed enough – Taylor has zero experience as a figure skating choreographer. But her love of the sport, her deep appreciation of figure skating history, and her desire to turn a dream into reality, is 100% genuine, and by the time viewers get to the final episode, a surprising amount of dramatic tension has been built, and it’s quite emotional. “Something I’ve had to reconcile – well, reconcile isn’t the right word, but accept, realize, embrace – is that this show is operating on different levels,” Taylor explained. “So yes, it’s a docu-comedy, but a lot of the time we’re not leaning into the comedy. The fact that these elite athletes have bought in, and want to be part of it, and are working at top levels to achieve the vision, is humbling and funny at the same time. There really is a strong sports element to the show, too, and we didn’t want to sacrifice the truth of that just for jokes. You know, we could have crafted a fake story, right? We could have crafted jokes, and not really shown the process, and leaned into some sillier stuff. But it was important that it either had to be funny, it had to be true, or you had to feel something. The moments are varied.” The names of those “elite athletes” who appear in I HAVE NOTHING have already been announced, but this is a spoiler alert for anyone who doesn’t want to know. At various points throughout the six episodes, viewers will see a veritable “who’s who” of legendary individuals from the figure skating community over the past 35 years, including Sandra Bezic, David Pelletier, Ekaterina Gordeeva, Brian Orser, Kurt Browning, Paul Martini, Barbara Underhill, Katarina Witt, Tara Lipinski, Kristi Yamaguchi, Adam Rippon, Elladj Baldé, and Elizabeth Manley. “I was just in awe of all of them,” Taylor said. “The debt of gratitude goes to Sandra Bezic (one of the best-known individuals in the history of the sport, as a skater, choreographer, and TV commentator), because these are her contemporaries, the people she has choreographed, and her dear friends as well. When we approached them, we assured them that while it was a comedy, it wasn’t making fun of the sport. If anyone was going to look bad, it was me. I’ll look naive. I’ll look delusional. I’ll look unhinged. I’ll be terribly earnest, but they will shine. So they all got involved, but really, Sandra was the person who made that happen.” Towards the end of I HAVE NOTHING, Mae Martin asks a pointed and pertinent question about Carolyn Taylor: “Will she ever come out of this world, or is this her now?” “I embraced the delusion, I really did,” Taylor admitted. “I lived in it as if it were the truth. And it was the truth, because it was happening. So it’s very hard to deal with something that you know is real, and not real, at the same time. There have been conversations  – will I choreograph a live show, like a touring show, because I’m such an expert now (laughs)? But I really do love that community, and that world. They were so gracious and wonderful. And now, you know, I’m hearing songs and seeing movement. Will I be able to shake the bug? Who knows?” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv