Mercer: people need a good laugh after pandemic
“I feel the role of a standup is to deliver jokes per minute. That’s what it’s all about and I don’t believe it’s my role to go out and lecture people or teach them anything.”
Rick Mercer
OTTAWA — Rick Mercer has a soft spot for Ottawa and it’s not only because the nation’s capital provides an abundance of targets to satirize, from politicians to protesters.
The popular Newfoundland and Labrador comedian, who returns to the nation’s capital Saturday to host Just For Laughs’ Comedy Night in Canada at TD Place, recently reminded us that Ottawa is also the city that gave him his start in showbiz.
“The first one-man show I ever did was in Ottawa,” Mercer said in an interview, “and so, for me as a performer, Ottawa is totally my home town. It was the first time I ever stood alone on stage.”
Let’s revisit that moment: It was 1990, and Mercer was a 19-year-old member of a St. John’s comedy troupe when he was tapped to do a solo show for the National Arts Centre’s Off-centre series, which featured emerging Canadian theatre artists performing off-site. The venue was at a stage then known as the Atelier, now called La Nouvelle Scène Gilles Desjardins.
Titled Show me the button: I’ll push it (or Charles Lynch must die!) and directed by Gerald Lunz (who went on to become Mercer’s longterm partner), Mercer’s bit was essentially a rant about the Meech Lake Accord, inspired by a column written by Lynch, an author and journalist who suggested Newfoundland and Labrador should be expelled from Confederation for opposing the accord.
The show was a hit. In her review, Ottawa Citizen writer Barbara Crook described it as a “comic rant” that “captures the anger, hurt and frustration of a misunderstood people, as well as the arrogance and absurdity of mainland logic.” Even Lynch was reported to have been “charmed” by the performance.
Mercer was soon invited back to Ottawa for a run at the Great Canadian Theatre Company. By 1993, he was on television (This Hour Has 22 Minutes) and a decade later, had his own show. The Rick Mercer Report signed off in 2018.
Television was his first love, “before anything else,” he says now, but he’s getting the hang of stand-up comedy too. While most comedians start out doing stand-up, Mercer didn’t find his way to it until after the TV show ended. By then, of course, he was a household name with the ability to fill arenas.
“I never was a standup before TV, I tackled it after TV,” he says. “When I went out on the road with the (2019) Just For Laughs Comedy Night in Canada tour, I was at a position in my life where I could say, ‘Okay,
I’ll go out and headline that show, but it’s gotta be an allcanadian lineup’ and they’d never done that before. But, we put a bum in every single seat from St. John’s to Victoria.”
For the follow-up edition of the tour, which was originally scheduled two years ago but bumped to this year because of the pandemic, he said there was no question that it would again be an all-canadian bill. Dave Merheje, Eman El-husseini and Ivan Decker are also on the program.
As for content, Mercer hints that one burning political issue is the polarization of the country, with Justin Trudeau “limping to the finish line” and Pierre Poilievre “rising like a phoenix from the ashes,” not to mention the comedic gold to be mined from the trucker occupation of downtown Ottawa.
The pandemic is another topic likely to surface, though Mercer doesn’t want to dwell on his experience. (Which was productive, by the way, as it resulted in his latest book, Talking to Canadians: A Memoir.)
“This is not one of those shows where I’m talking about my personal journey,” Mercer says. “I feel the role of a standup is to deliver jokes per minute. That’s what it’s all about and I don’t believe it’s my role to go out and lecture people or teach them anything.”
He also points out that we’ve all been through a lot in the past couple of years and to be able to gather together for a laugh is a good enough reason to celebrate.
“You have to be cognizant of the times we’re in and the fact that people are coming out for the first time in two years, and recognize what it is they need,” Mercer said. “They need to laugh.”