Derek Edwards showed a respectable sized Wednesday night crowd at the Yates Memorial Theatre why he has been called “the funniest man in Canada” by some of Canada’s funniest people like Rick Mercer.
For a pleasant 90 minutes he riffed on everything from the different ways to slip on the winter ice, driving across the flatness of
Saskatchewan prairies in winter, small towns with “ No Services,” trying to navigate Lethbridge’s many different 12th streets and cracked a veritable menagerie of jokes about animals juxtaposed in strange places like Albertan ostriches and llamas. He told a few humourous anecdotes about traveling across Canada in the winter like spending winter in Moncton and being asked during a radio interview if the show was going to be clean which lead to a riff on how he doesn’t trust people who don’t swear.
He also had a lot of jokes about arguing with his wife, a few jokes about drinking and finding a “bargain” on two for one tequila shots.
He also explored the minutiae of modern living, like waiting in line at Tim Hortons behind the indecisive woman “who’s been taking annoying pills for the past 30 years” and Toronto’s multiculturalism experiences like trying hot Jamaican food and being the only “Johnny Winter drinking a milk in a panda costume, white man in the neighbourhood.’ There were also a few familiar bits including taking his fear of big dogs to his first meeting with his “funny friend’s used dog from the pound” German shepherd.
He finished his set with a riff on silly commercials for adult diapers and hilarious series of jokes abut the Acorn mobile chair system for seniors and trying to escape an argument with the wife without being able to run up the stairs and slam the door. He left the stage to a standing ovation.
— by Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
