Comedian Derek Edwards takes small town Canada on tour

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“I’m just going for laughs. I’m not trying to change your mind politically or your outlook on the world. I’m going for the gut laugh, and the more the better.”

So says comedian Derek Edwards who plays the Bella Concert Hall at Mount Royal University on June 15. He said the title of the tour, “Alls I’m Saying,” brings back memories of growing up.

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“If that doesn’t ring as Canadiana I don’t know what does,” he said. “It’s certainly a phrase I heard a lot growing up in northern Ontario.

“I just figure I’m not really saying anything important, so I might as well use it as a title,” he added with a laugh.

Edwards is a regular at the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal. He’s also the only Canadian winner of the prestigious Vail International Comedy Competition, is a two time Gemini nominee and has been nominated numerous times as Best Stand-up Comic at the Canadian Comedy Awards.
His TV credits include The New Red Green Show, A&E’s Comedy on the Road, Just for Laughs, and CBC’s Comics, and his biography describes him as having “award-winning rural humour.”

“I’m not much of a city slicker, I’m not like Dennis Miller you know, coming on with real clever, coy, poignant remarks …,” he said. “I try to relate to people from small towns like myself.”

That style of humour has gotten him a lot of mileage, and not just outside the larger centres.

“The first few times in Toronto, just speaking plain-spoken, how you doin’ type verbiage, and the thing is there’s so many people displaced from little towns living in the city that they were absolutely on board,” he said.

“There’s no true definition of what a city person is anyways,” he added. “Most of them are just regular folks … takes them longer to get to work.”

Edwards said people have the same urge to laugh just as they did when he started out 30 years ago.

“I don’t think people’s sense of humour has really changed that much. There’s always that shark in the water called political correct … it’s kind of lurking around like a Great White.”

Derek Edwards performs at the Bella Concert Hall, Taylor Centre for the Performing Arts on June 15. Tickets are available at the box office, by phone (403 440-7770) and online at tickets.mru.ca. Showtime is 7:30 p.m.