Comedian Eric Johnston will bring his “Son of a Bull” tour to the Jackson-Triggs Niagara Estate amphitheatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake on Thursday, Aug. 20, with an hour-long performance that mixes memory, dark humour and intimate reflections on family and health.
From personal grief to punchlines
Johnston has emerged in recent years as a comedian who foregrounds topics often treated with sobriety rather than laughter: addiction, trauma and men’s mental health. The Toronto-born performer’s visibility increased after the premiere of his “Run With the Bull” docuseries earlier this year, and his current tour continues to centre his life story as material for comedy.
He frames the show around his upbringing in Hamilton as the child of professional wrestler Daniel “Bullwhip” Johnson, whose career included appearances in promotions such as Lutte International, World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment. Johnston’s father died at 49, a week after Johnston’s 13th birthday, from kidney failure related to long-term alcoholism — a formative event he now revisits on stage.
“By the end of it, you’re going to learn everything you need to know about me.”
Johnston says he intentionally pairs weighty subject matter with levity, using humour as a tool to disarm audiences while still addressing the consequences of addiction and the pressures of fatherhood and fertility that have shaped his adult life.
“I talk openly about the fact that my dad passed away, and I find a way to make it funny,”
and later,
“It’s fine, it’s OK, I’m laughing — you guys laugh, too.”
Performance style and public conversation
Johnston likens aspects of his stagecraft to professional wrestling: measured, sometimes low-key storytelling punctuated by bigger, high-energy crescendos. That approach suits material that alternates between intimate recollection and broad, self-reflexive jokes.
His candour has made him, in his own words, what some have called “the poster boy” of men’s mental health in Canadian comedy — a label he did not seek but has had to navigate as audiences and media tie his work to larger conversations about masculinity and well-being.
Tour stop details
The Jackson-Triggs amphitheatre presentation is part of a string of Canadian dates for the “Son of a Bull” tour. The set Johnson describes for Niagara-on-the-Lake promises to marry nostalgia with gallows humour while remaining rooted in personal truth.
| Date | Venue | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Aug. 20 | Jackson-Triggs Niagara Estate amphitheatre | Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. |
- Subject matter: addiction, grief, fatherhood and infertility framed through stand-up
- Tone: a blend of nostalgia and gallows humour with high-energy moments
- Context: follows his docuseries Run With the Bull and ongoing public profile on men’s mental health
For audiences, the appeal is twofold: the immediacy of stand-up theatre and a sense that the performer is laying bare developmental wounds while inviting laughter rather than pity. Critics and fans have noted that when comedians work through trauma onstage, the result can be both healing and provocative — and Johnston’s material fits that pattern.
Whether the crowd at Jackson-Triggs will come primarily for the jokes or the confessional arc is almost beside the point: modern stand-up increasingly functions as a cultural forum, and this tour is an example of how performers translate private struggle into shared experience. Johnston’s hour promises to be both entertaining and a continuation of a larger national conversation about how Canadians talk about addiction, mental health and the ties that bind family to identity.
Tickets and additional tour dates are typically available through venue and promoter channels.
