Twenty years of staying relevant
Steve Patterson, host of The Debaters, has a long career on the comedy stage
Toronto-based comedian Steve Patterson says a certain U.S. president — “he whose name shall not be mentioned,” Patterson calls him — does not figure into his standup routine.
What that person “has done, mostly, is make comedians out of newscasters,” Patterson says. “I think there’s not really many punchlines left to be written because what he says is ridiculous enough. So I don’t touch on that too much. I touch on the topics maybe, but I feel like that has kind of hijacked the world’s attention, I don’t want it to hijack my show.”
That said, Patterson, who performs Oct. 12 at the Shenkman Arts Centre in Orléans, says his comedy does take cues from current events and politics. “I like to talk about a whole a bunch of things,” he says. “I believe I’ve solved NAFTA, so I’ll be sharing that with the Ottawa audience.”
Many people don’t know that Patterson has a long history of doing standup. He’s been at it for 20 years, and for the last ten of them he’s garnered a national audience as the host — and “referee,” he says — of the CBC Radio show The Debaters. He also hosted the 2015 HGTV home renovation series I Wrecked My House.
Patterson, 46, has a young child, and says she has sparked insights that give him material for his show. “Having a toddler at home, you really sort of get a look into the mind of politicians,” he says. “It’s an amazing similarity that toddlers have to politicians. I like to pay attention to what’s going on in the world and what’s going on with my toddler, and it’s amazing, the overlap.”
He realizes that news today — fake or otherwise — makes some people tear their hair out. But for his show, which is open to all ages, he’s determined to mine it for laughs. “The line between furious rage and hilarious comedy, it’s pretty thin, but if you don’t find it, it’s awkward for everyone. So I try to have a positive slant to most of my standup.”
Patterson says the audiences at his theatre shows can be split between comedy-club regulars and CBC listeners, and the latter sometimes aren’t sure what to make of him doing standup. “You can tell by the look their faces, they’re kind of scared that the radio is talking to them. They’re not sure if they’re supposed to react or not.”
Patterson hopes, though, that his audience will react and participate in his show. “While it is a theatre show, it’s not the opera,” he says.
Patterson, who was raised in London, Ont., made his jump into comedy two decades ago after leaving his job as an advertising copywriter.
“I decided to give comedy a go because there wouldn’t be as many levels of rejection, believe it or not,” he says. “Comedy’s all about rejection also, but at least you get to get the comedy out there into the audience. It’s not a bunch of people sitting in a boardroom going, ‘No, we don’t think this is the right ad for our toilet paper.’”
Being a comedian has meant a lot of time on the road, up to threequarters of the year, Patterson says. He counts travels back and forth across Canada, to the U.S., United Kingdom, Ireland and the United Arab Emirates among the high points of his career. Now, with a young child, he’s glad he’s on the road about a third of the time.
During 20 years of making people laugh, how has his comedy changed?
“I hope it’s improved. It’s hard to say. I don’t get to watch myself. I have to rely on others’ reactions,” he says. “But I think that as your point of view changes, your comedy hopefully changes. I think now I’m more interested in doing comedy that does have a point. I think at its best, comedy does have some commentary to it and can help make a point about things.”
Patterson recounts that in the past, he’s been involved with a charity event called Humour Me, in which CEOs, coached by comedians, try their hand at doing standup. “They’ve never done comedy before, but they’re CEOs, they’re outgoing people, they’re used to speaking,” Patterson says. “But in comedy years, they’re infants.
“Watching a 50-year-old man do a standup set that’s never done standup before, it’s just like watching a 19-year-old (comedian),” Patterson says. “They don’t know what to talk about so they talk about mostly stuff that comes out of their bodies, to be honest. It’s pretty interesting to see.
“So you kind of hope that your comedy evolves and I hope that mine has.”
A comedy career, Patterson says, means being in it for the long haul. “You’ve got to keep hustling all the time. It never really lets up. There’s no retirement plan,” he says. “You’ve got to still be delivering ‘funny’ and hopefully staying relevant.
“The comedians that don’t stay relevant, for whatever reason, are the ones that have to stop doing it, because people don’t listen to people who aren’t relevant anymore. That’s the challenge of it, is trying to stay relevant as you can.” phum@postmedia.com twitter.com/peterhum