Getting to the Universal Truths of IFC’s “Baroness von Sketch Show”

Earlier this year, during the last week of March, I found myself in one of Manhattan’s swankiest restaurants: Upland NYC.  The very smart publicity chief at IFC had set a handful of critics up with a chance to preview some of their upcoming content -- all this during what was arguably the best lunch I’d ever had in New York City.  The TV gods had smiled upon me that fateful afternoon, as evidenced by the sole responsibility with which I’d been charged; I was to interview the Canadian goddesses of sketch comedy -- the artists currently known as Baroness von Sketch.  I made my way to a table where I sat with IFC’s four latest imports (pictured with me at top, left to right) -- Jennifer Whelan, Meredith MacNeil, Carolyn Taylor and Aurora Brown.  As a huge fan of these women and what they contribute to the comedy world, I was nervous as all hell.  “A joke will break the ice for sure,” I thought.  So, I went for it, and it worked, and I later learned that, having only known me by my name, when they read my earlier review of their show they had assumed I was a woman.  It was a love thing.