Comedy All Stars Return to Wheaton

Jimmy McHugh’s Chicago Comedy All Stars will perform at The Bank Restaurant and Bar Friday after success with a nearly sold-out show in late April. 

The 12 comics in the group all have 15 to 20 years of experience, according to founder Jimmy McHugh, who started the Chicago Comedy All Stars three years ago. Mike Toomey and Mike Preston will perform at The Bank Friday.

Toomey has performed on The WGN Morning News in Chicago, appeared in concert with names including Wayne Newton and Crosby, Stills and Nash, and shows including HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival and MTV's "Half Hour Comedy Hour," and is the creator and star of "TV & Me," a one-person show that had a successful run at the Apollo Theater in Chicago.

Mike Preston is a comic who is most known for his talk show, Psycho Babble, which has had Mike Ditka, Craig Ferguson, Vanilla Ice and Jerry Seinfeld as guests. 

McHugh and Patti Vasquez performed for a group of about 80 people at The Bank in late April. McHugh, a Chicago native, has appeared at comedy clubs nationwide and has also been seen on Comedy Central, HBO, MTV, ESPN2 and the Oprah Winfrey Show.

McHugh mixes observational humor with a collection of voices and facial expressions for bits including imitations of his goofy dentist or his friend's yappy lap dog responding to the doorbell and commentary on the Chicago Cubs.

Bank owner Mike Burke said he hopes to make the show—""—a regular event, possibly as often as every six weeks.

McHugh said the intimate setting of the Bank's basement performance space reminded him of "the old days" of comedy.

“It’s a nice unique little set up … back in the old days, it was like this—small rooms,” McHugh said. “That’s when it [kind of] works best … laughter is very contagious when you have people on top of each other … it spreads the laughter around.”

Wheaton resident Rick Carney, who rallied his friends to purchase tickets for the show, called the comics, "hysterical ... there wasn’t one person who had a bad time," he said.

He said Vasquez told a lot of "woman" jokes that women "were out of their minds over." They were "little personal things," he said, "stuff that guys wouldn't really understand."

“I think Jimmy should be doing it weekly because it’s so good,” Carney said. 

Comedy night starts at 9 p.m. Friday, Jun. 17. Admission is $70 per couple, which includes appetizers and one drink per person.