Every year is a busy year for Matt Wright, but this one more than ever. It must be his constant devotion to comedy that has made him the undisputed “Funniest Comic in NL” for a third year in a row, in The Overcast’s People’s Choice Awards.

“I’ve been in Halifax for a big portion of the year, writing for This Hour Has 22 Minutes,” he says, “so that takes up 50-60 hours of my weeks. And I’m doing stand up at night. I live here while 22 is shooting, but I’ve been back and forth a few times. Halifax is nice. It’s like St. John’s if it was organized by sober people.”

Wright was also part of an Atlantic-wide standup tour featuring writers from This Hour Has 2 Minutes, and he did his first headlining tour out west, hitting up Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Fort Mac. “I felt like a real Newfoundlander working in Alberta,” he jokes.

“I also did a variety show called Matturday Wright Live in the summer, where me and my friends wrote/performed the most self indulgent of sketches. And we had musical guests. It was so fun. I miss it.”

He also managed to squeeze in time as a filmmaker. His short film Wife and Death, starring Greg Malone, has been making the circuit, so he’s travelled a little with that. 2016’s whirlwind will end for Matt on December 17th, for his annual Christmas Comedy Show at the LSPH Hall.

The show will be headlined by Wright, and hosted by his “friend and former roommate/fairy dogfather Mike Fardy,” and will feature some of Wright’s personal favourite local laugh-makers:  Mike Lynch, Amanda Bulman, Veronica Dymond, and Ross Moore, whom he calls “really sharp performers and good writers. We might also do some sketch. Maybe some improv. I don’t know what I’m doing yet. I never really know what I’m doing.”

But what he does know is promising: “I’m proud of the writing I did and I think they’re some of the best jokes I’ve ever written. I don’t know if they’re smart or dumb. Some of each, I hope. I think having my head in the news for 22 has pushed me to a sillier place stand up wise. The world has just been so exhausting this year.”