Derek Edwards: fun and the funniest guy around
And the gold star for stand-up comedy goes to: Derek Edwards.
After his 90-minute laughfest at Kelowna Community Theatre on Friday night, I went backstage to give him a couple copies of the preview I wrote for the Oct. 14 edition of The Okanagan Weekend Edition.
“My partner laughed so hard and so long that her cheeks were sore by the end of the show, I told him.
“I love to hear that,” he responded. “You know, I arrived late and had to get ready for the show, but I couldn’t find a convenience store downtown where I could buy some cigarettes. No joke. But I had to laugh because it was ‘one of those nights.’
The 59-year-old regular at the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal has the comedic gift of making the ordinary extraordinary.
And like all great comedians, he has the timing, the delivery and the uncanny ability to get on a roll. In his case, once he gets you laughing, it’s contagious. It’s like a Rocky Mountain avalanche, nonstop until you are rolling in the aisles.
Plus he is quick, a lesson learned from his first performance three decades ago when a table of drunken customers from his home town of Timmins, Ont., completely threw him off his routine. It took a year for him to get back onstage.
As Friday’s show began, a man in a front row shouted something about the late Gord Downie from Tragically Hip.
“Thanks for starting the show on a down note,” responded Edwards. “Comedy is more about a listening experience," he added to laughter from the audience.
“I wanted to see your show last year,” said the man who apparently also wanted the last word.
“I wasn’t here last year, but it’s a silver lining that you made it this year,” quipped Edwards to more laughter.
Later in the show, he talked about a Squamish road sign posting a 50 km-h speed limit when children are present. A woman in the front row on the other side of the theatre shouted she knew the sign he was talking about.
“My fact checker is here,” responded Edwards. “Now, you’re going to tell me your life story and how you missed my show last year?” More laughter erupted. The measure of a comedy show is often how many jokes you can remember.
Keeping in mind that Edwards had a seeemingly endless string of short jokes, the memory of some of them just won’t go away.
Turning his attention to scams, he talked about emerging from a Toronto liquor store and hearing a pandhandler explain donations of change were “for the cat” and a cat on a leash emerged.
“Imagine: an alcoholic cat. I will donate to a cause like that. Can you see the cat at home, pulling on the leash, take me to the liquor store?” and Edwards pretended a cat on a leash was pulling him across the stage.
He even threw in British Columbia humour, joking about the “scary” Sea to Ski Highway with a cliff on one side and a mountain on the other.
“It should be the Fall to Skid to Death Highway. And there’s no arrow pointing to a safe zone. You’re screwed. No wonder there are so many potheads and daredevils out here. Your life is hanging by a thread.”
In our earlier interview, he had paid tribute to his wife of more than 20 years, Dawn, who is earning rave reviews as an ebook author under the nom-de-plume Judith Jackson.
In his stand-up routine, however, there were numerous chauvinistic jokes about their interreaction that both men and women in the theatre could identify with and laugh about.
When he ignored the obvious signal from her that she wanted to leave a party, she berated him as she drove them home.
“I rolled down the window so her words (going in one ear and) pouring out the other would go out the window. The people outside were hit by a drive-by guilt trip.”
During a recent “heat alert designed to create a panic,” a Toronto health advisory warned the public not to leave children, pets and seniors in cars due to the danger of overheating.
It was an insult to seniors, said Edwards, since “he’s been in the workforce for 40 years and hasn’t mastered windows and doors?”
So many jokes, so little space here. Racing against another customer in the parking lot to the door of a Tim Hortons, the woman in Tim Hortons who can’t make up her mind, veterinarians who use rubber prosthetics on a dog that has just been fixed, an Acorn stairclimber “equipped with a toilet seat” that won’t go fast enough to escape a wife’s anger and celebrating his 26th wedding anniversary with his wife — “I’m upstairs, she’s downstairs.”
Backstage, I advised Edwards to show my preview to his wife so she can be assured that he does say nice things about her in press interviews.
He laughed. And so did I. It was that kind of night.