I’ve always had mixed feelings about Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Café show on CBC Radio One. Sometimes it seems a bit twee or corny, but if I’m driving around town on a Sunday I’ll always tune in because I know that somewhere along the way, Stuart McLean will make me laugh. He’s toured with the show since 1998, broadcasting live from places like Thunder Bay and Truro, Yarmouth and Glace Bay. When Vinyl Café came to the Orpheum in Vancouver, I just had to go, to satisfy my curiosity and to put a face to that familiar voice. After the taping, the house lights went up and I could see that I was not alone: nearly six thousand people had dressed up and come out for an evening of live radio on stage. This is the kind of entertainment that can travel to any town in the country: vaudeville, resurrected and taken on the road. McLean doffs his jacket, settles on a stool at centre stage and begins to tell a story. It’s a new story, he says, a Dave and Morley Christmas tale. What amazes me is that in this age of high-tech Christmas toys and huge cinematic entertainments, this gangly guy—a storyteller—has written a new short story and taken it on the road. It’s not even a particularly good short story in the grand literary scheme of things, but everybody in the theatre knows Dave and Morley and we’re here for the latest gossip—neighbours for an evening in Stuart McLean’s imaginary Canadian small town.