Comedian Derek Edwards is known as one of the most popular stand-up comics in Canada.
He lives in the Toronto area, but he loves getting back home to the small towns of northern Ontario where the audiences seem to have more of an understanding of his laid-back style and his ability to find humour in everyday things.
Edwards is off on a 12-city Ontario tour beginning April 27 that will see him appearing in Barrie at the Georgian Theatre on May 7. Tickets are available by calling 705-739-4228.
His new 90-minute performance is called in Praise of the Ostrich, a reference to pulling his head out of the sand long enough to offer commentary on the current state of affairs.
Edwards admitted it is indeed a challenge to write a complete 90-minute comedy show, but it is something he has done before. He recalled one previous tour shortly after COVID-19 when he was appearing in a small town near Georgian Bay. Edwards said it was his first live show in months.
"I was just sort of breaking back in. And I was so rusty. Just like an old door rusty," Edwards recalled. "So it was getting back on — not to do a seven-minute guest set you know — but to do the hour and a half!
"Well, geez, I think I blanked out around 55 (minutes) and oh God, did I have a chat with the crowd," Edwards said with a laugh.
He said it suddenly became like an interview with people asking where he was from and what he did growing up.
Edwards said he was delighted with the crowd and they seemed to enjoy his stories.
"And once something came up that reminded me of a bit I used to do, well, that was just a glorious fluke. But yeah, it was a bit of a scramble."
As a native of Timmins, Edwards also chatted about growing up in the northern mining town during the 1970s. (He was born in 1958.)
He appeared in Timmins last weekend to help out on a local comedy festival and enjoyed wise-cracking about local news events, especially when a shoplifter was arrested after police followed footprints in the snow.
It is those sorts of incidents that help Edwards tell the stories that people love to laugh at.
During the interview for this story, the conversation turned to the local TV station in Timmins. It was where this writer once worked as a rookie reporter, but it was also where Edwards' uncle, Danny, worked as a camera operator.
"Do you remember Danny?"
Of course it was a time when local stations did a lot of live television and the studio camera guy was nothing if not a minor celebrity known to everyone who visited the TV station for a live interview.
Edwards was pleased at hearing that everyone remembered his Uncle Danny. He also remembered one of the unique aspects of growing up in Timmins.
Along with CFCL TV, there was also CFCL Radio, which had a popular nighttime radio show called Hilltop Rendezvous. It was a reference to the fact the station was built on a hill at the north end of Pine Street.
Hundreds of carloads of teens as well as younger kids with their parents would drive to the hilltop radio station every night to meet a live deejay, request a song and then dedicate that song. Every teenager in town would be listening in.
Edwards laughed at the memory.
"I have such vivid memories. I remember some of the funniest dedications. 'To everybody I know. And to everybody I don't know'," Edwards howled with laughter.
As he spoke about his years at Timmins High and Vocational School, I reminded Edwards of a popular math teacher who was there at the time, Gord Spylo.
"Oh, I remember him. Mr. Spylo.”
"Yes. He was my first landlord," I said.
"Oh my god," Edwards laughed. "This is way too small a world."
Edwards also mentioned he was doing a benefit comedy show at the high school on the weekend.
I told him that the comedy show organizer, Rick Lemieux, was another friend from Timmins.
"Good god, is there anyone you and I don't know?" Edwards laughed again.
Commenting on his upcoming tour, Edwards said he is not sure how he manages to stay relevant to so many generations.
"Well, you know, I really don't know. I don't think I've ever been up to the moment, you know, finger on the pulse of all newsworthy things," he laughed again, with that familiar gasping guffaw that has become something of a trademark.
He added that part of comedy is that the world can be such an unhappy place, but there is still humour.
"And I find the comedy is really just an escape hatch for people that don't want to deal with the real world. They just want some conscience-free giggles you know, just a belly laugh here and there."
Edwards adds that irritations that happen in everyday life can really be things we can laugh about.
"Well, sometimes stupid crap is a goldmine. The stupider, the better," Edwards laughed.
He said it is the everyday irritations that ordinary people deal with that they will find funny when others have to deal with them too.
The other thing Edwards relies on, he said, is anything that is a local issue.
He said he will spend the next several days to "polish and shine" the performance before he arrives at the Fraser Auditorium on May 13 and he is sure he will find a local issue or anything that is newsworthy to home in on.
"I'm thinking oh, that's in the show. I'm putting that in," Edwards laughed. He said he has to be careful to pick and choose things that people will relate to and at the same time be careful "about what you're yammering about."
He added that despite Canada's vast size, there seems to be a common thread of things Canadians find funny. He said the joke about oversized logging trucks rolling down Highway 144, propped up by a few hockey sticks, can easily be rejigged to comment on logging trucks in New Brunswick.
Edwards said Canadian audiences are courteous, but still "pretty sharp and worldly" and will go along with just about any joke as long as it is not mean-spirited.
Len Gillis is a reporter at Sudbury.com.
