For some people, ignorance is bliss, and that state of being has comedian Derek Edwards thinking.
The Ontario-based comic will be in Prince Albert on June 14 as part of In Praise of the Ostrich, his latest comedy tour. He said some people are always looking for an escape hatch when trouble comes, and that’s formed the basis of his newest 90-minute comedy routine.
“The idea is avoiding trouble,” Edwards said with a chuckle. “Whenever there’s a horizon of dark clouds coming up for me, I get my head right in the sand, just like my good friend the ostrich. ‘I don’t want to deal with that. I’ll deal with that as it passes by. Ignorance is bliss’ is what I’m talking about.”
The June 14 performance will mark Edwards’ first stop in Prince Albert since before COVID hit. The Timmins, Ont. product said there are a lot of similarities between Northern Saskatchewan and Northern Ontario, where he worked summer jobs in the mining sector before pursuing comedy.
He credits that experience for helping mould his show as a down-to-earth, consummately Canadian comedian.
“It’s a little worldly experience before you hop onto a stage and never get another blister,” Edwards said. “I don’t mind carrying a lunch box. It didn’t bother me at all. I worked all kinds of jobs, so I learned a lot of just how to get along with the crew and whatnot by working with people up north.”
Edwards has piled up the awards over 30-plus years in the comedy business. The list includes winning Best Standup Comic at the Canadian Comedy Awards, plus multiple Gemini nominations for Best Performance in a Comedy.
Edwards joked that he keeps performing because “it’s too late for me to be an astronaut” but said he still loves making people laugh more than three decades after launching his career.
“The joy of getting a decent laugh on a good night, that never wore off,” he said. “That fun-loving part of the, I’m the luckiest guy to be able to do that as a form of work. It’s ridiculously good fortune, so I try my best and the joy of it has never faded.”
Prince Albert is the first Saskatchewan stop on Edwards’ current tour, but after 30 years he’s performed in just about every city in Canada.
Regardless of whether he’s in Victoria, B.C., Halifax, Nova Scotia, or the Canadian prairies, Edwards said Canadians are always eager to laugh.
“We don’t take ourselves that seriously,” he said. “You can poke fun at all kinds of things in Canada and make light of any type of facet of Canadian living, and people laugh because they don’t take themselves seriously. It’s much easier-going and fun for that alone because it’s so light-hearted.”
Derek Edwards’ ‘In Praise of the Ostrich’ Tour begins at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 14 at the E.A. Rawlinson Centre. Tickets are available online at earc.ca or by calling the box office at 306-765-1270.
@kerr_jas • jason.kerr@paherald.sk.ca