Review: You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community That Changed the World (In a Canadian Kind of Way).
Nick Davis spins an affectionate story about a group of friends who changed the comedy world
In You Had to Be There, documentarian Nick Davis invites his audience to eavesdrop on the intimate friendship that shaped our current comedy universe.
Davis’ film tells the story of the 1972 Toronto production of the musical Godspell, which starred a cast of young actors, some in their first professional roles, who would go on to become show business legends.
It's fun to listen to Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Victor Garber, Paul Shaffer, Jane Eastwood, Dave Thomas and the rest of the cast recount the start of their careers together, but the best part is witnessing their decades-long friendship.
A deep and abiding love took root on the floorboards of the Royal Alexandra Theatre that continues to flourish long after the flower power musical about Jesus and his followers faded from view.
That affection and familiarity are present in how these famous folk talk about each other and laugh at the memories of when they were young.
Short and Levy grew up together in Hamilton, ON, met Thomas at McMaster University and when Levy read about the Godspell open casting call, he told his friends back at Mac to come and try out.
Martin had just arrived in Toronto from her home in Portland, ME and was desperate to be in the production; Eastwood was coming off the success of Canadian film Going Down the Road; Garber had been performing Godspell songs as part of a young people’s touring show, and Shaffer was just there to accompany Avril Chown on piano.
Then there was Gilda Radner. She walked into the casting call, sang Zip-a-Dee-Do-Da, got the part, and pulled everyone into her orbit, particularly Short. They dated for two years, and the film is particularly poignant, listening to him, and their friends reminisce about Radner, who died at age 42 in 1989 from ovarian cancer.
There’s a scene towards the end of the film, where we watch a bunch of them gather in a New York City loft, hugging and asking after each other’s families.
Then Shaffer sits down at the piano and the gang starts to sing ‘Day by Day’, Godspell’s most recognizable song.
It's all so familiar, so human.
The cast tells their story with wit and grace, living up to the film’s extra-long title – You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community That Changed the World (In a Canadian Kind of Way).
That’s not hyperbole.
Godspell played for 14 months in Toronto and through a combination of talent, luck and kismet, they were launched into the stratosphere.
Garber was the first to leave, to play Jesus in the film version of Godspell and then onto Broadway and Hollywood, becoming a familiar face in Sleepless in Seattle, Titanic, Legally Blonde, Alias and lots more.
Shaffer and Radner left for New York City to be part of Canadian Lorne Michaels’ new late-night comedy show Saturday Night Live, along with Dan Ackroyd, who used to hang out with everyone at Short and Levy’s Avenue Road apartment.
Martin, Levy, and Eastwood joined Second City in Toronto and then SCTV, alongside John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, Harold Ramis and Joe Flaherty. Short joined a few years later and then SNL.
Not everybody went on to fame and fortune.
Avril Chown, who joined Godspell having already worked in TV and touring as a backup singer and go-go dancer, was later cast as the only woman on The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show in 1974, a kids’ Saturday morning show I remember watching.
While there, she was sexually assaulted repeatedly by a cast member, an experience that robbed her of her love of performing. When the show ended, her career in the spotlight did too.
That’s why it was particularly wonderful to see her Zooming in for the post-screening Q&A alongside Martin, Short and Eastwood up on the screen while Garber, Levy, Shaffer and fellow original cast member Valda Aviks were there in-person, on the Royal Alex stage where it all started.
Levy stood upstage right, looked out at the audience and told us this was where he stood for the opening number, while Shaffer wandered over to the other side of the stage, looking up at Chown on the screen to remind her where she made her entrance.
For most of the Q&A, Garber, Levy, Schaefer and Aviks had their backs to the audience as they chatted with their friends on Zoom, gently teasing each other.
It was the most joyous and intimate film premiere I have attended at TIFF, and I didn’t want it to end.
I came for the cultural history; I stayed to witness all that love and friendship; how very Canadian.
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You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell ignited the comedy revolution, spread love & overalls, and created a community that changed the world (in a Canadian kind of way) had its world premiere at TIFF on Saturday, September 6th, 2025. Streaming release dates have not been set; CBC will broadcast in Canada.
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