What: Derek Edwards
Where: McPherson Playhouse
When: Friday, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $46 (250) 386-6121
A 28-year veteran of the comedy trenches, Derek Edwards has faced his share of hecklers.
However, being a polite Canadian, he doesn’t retaliate with the lacerating put-downs favoured by some comics. Instead, he takes care to present himself as a good guy, in order to keep audiences on his side.
“You just try to handle the ball the best you can,” said Edwards, sounding like the good-natured, middle-aged, all-round Canuck that he is.
He’s a familiar face on the comedy scene. A winner of Best Standup Comic at the Canadian Comedy Awards, Edwards has regularly played Montreal’s Just for Laughs Festival and starred in TV specials for the CBC and The Comedy Network.
Edwards chatted recently from his cottage in northern Ontario, explaining he was holed up in snow-bound isolation in order to finish writing and rehearsing his latest stand-up show, Baloney and Wine. It comes to the McPherson Playhouse on Friday.
“It’s a great place with few distractions,” Edwards said.
Out of reach from cellphone reception, the retreat is heated by a wood stove.
“It’s been kind of a cold winter. So I’m out here foraging for part of my day. You chop wood into bite-sized pieces and chuck it into the stove and breathe a sigh of relief over a cup of tea.”
What could be more Canadian? On the phone (a land line), Edwards was amiable and self-deprecating. He said he likes the solitude of the cabin because there’s no one to witness him running over material out loud. He also prefers the cabin for media interviews.
“When I’m having a chat with somebody like you, I think to myself, ‘I hope nobody’s overhearing me go on and on about me.’ It’s untoward.”
Back to hecklers. One of the worst cases Edwards encountered was two 60-year-old women with three carafes (presumably empty) sitting on the table in front of them. It was in Halifax and the show was being recorded.
“You couldn’t shut them up. There was nothing you could say to embarrass them,” Edwards said.
“You’re not in the room, they’re telling their own stuff, laughing out of kilter. You’re trying to set up a premise. There’s this huge guffaw, this high-pitched giggling sound. And as joyous as it is — you don’t want weeping in the room — oddly enough, it didn’t help.”
Another time, someone brought a baby to one of his shows. Each time the audience laughed, the tot followed suit in the momentary silence that followed.
“They’re the type of people everyone hates. I bet they have wind chimes, I swear,” Edwards said with a laugh.
He’s a university dropout (former English major) who toiled at blue-collar jobs before becoming a professional comic. He unloaded trucks and painted houses. Once, Edwards worked for a railway. However, he was fired after driving a locomotive in the station yard with the brakes on, ruining the engine.
Comedy worked out better, with audiences taking to his laconic delivery and woebegone expression. Edwards specializes in regular-guy observational humour: the hazards of skiing, perhaps, or those pesky folks who take too long at Tim Hortons.
A veteran comic, he’s learned a few things along the way. For instance, sometimes a tried-and-true joke will, for some reason, start falling distressingly flat.
“Certain things that used to work, don’t. And when you find something that does [work], it’s great for three shows. And then it just drops off the face of the world.”
Edwards figures this may be connected to the “raw energy of fear” that accompanies the delivery of new material. Once the comic becomes complacent, the edge disappears.
“And that’s another thing I’ve learned,” he said. “Never relax.”
