Timmins, born, Toronto based everyman and comedian Derek Edwards always looks forward to coming out west as he will when he brings his Baloney and Wine tour to the Yates Centre, Nov. 25.
“It’s like a whole different world from Ontario to Alberta and even Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
You have a different way of looking at things out there,” said Edwards, making last minute preparations and writing for the tour.
“Calgary and Edmonton are getting bigger and they’re more in a hurry and they don’t have time to give you the time of the day like in Toronto. But there's a lot of hard working people out there — there’s lots of lunch boxes — blue collar folks — those are my folks,” he said.
“I’ve lived the northern experience, growing up in Timmins, so I can identify with them,” he said.
He noted in addition to the different outlook, he also likes looking out the window at the scenery from the plains to the mountains.
“I’m living in Toronto, but everybody hates Toronto, so I don’t want to irritate everybody by talking about Toronto for 90 minutes,” he said adding he is always looking for a regional and local angle to appeal to audiences in different communities.
He would rather find the humour in everyday experiences rather than get political in his routine.
“I’d rather talk about the little things we all experience,” he said. I very seldom talk about politics,” he said.
“ It has to pass the chuckle test,” he said, he said adding he has never been one for doing one-liners like Rodney Dangerfield.
“ I like to put an experience into telling a story,” he said.
Storytelling has served him well over the past 28 years as a professional stand-up comedian.
“The last 28 years have gone by fast,” he observed, adding he has had many great experiences in that time including multiple experiences at the renown Just for Laughs Comedy festival in Montreal.
“I‘ve performed there eight or 10 times,” he said adding he has performed at most of the multiple venues involved with the festival.
While he enjoys those higher profile gigs, one of the things he enjoys the most is to perform on Television and radio programs like the Debaters on CBC.
“They give you a topic and you have a week then you can riff on that,” he said
Derek Edwards performs at the Yates Theatre, Nov. 25 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets cost $45.
