Stand-up comedian Ron James brings his award-winning show back to the live stage this fall, making stops throughout the Prairie provinces from Portage-la-Prairie, MB to Camrose, AB to a Dec. 4 Moose Jaw show at the Mae Wilson.
MooseJawToday.com spoke with James, 64, over the phone about his COVID writing project — All Over the Map: Rambles and Ruminations from the Canadian Road, published by Penguin-Random House on Sep. 28 — his love of live performance, and what audiences can expect from his tour.
“Back Where I Belong is absolutely all about getting back on stage,” James said. “I gave it that name after COVID. I almost called it Back Where We Belong, but then people would have asked, ‘What? Is he talking about himself in the third person?’
“Anyway, we do all belong there, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, laughing our worries away and processing the trauma in the language of laughs. It’s a wonderful feeling.”
COVID was a strange sort of wake-up call, James said, because everyone became suspicious and somewhat afraid of each other. At the same time, people also realized how valuable community and a sense of belonging are and how much they missed gathering in groups.
“That’s what’s great about being on stage,” James said. “For the two hours that I’m up there, in a world that’s increasingly fractured and polarized on so many different lines, we’re all on the same page. We’re all laughing at the same things!
“And it’s not my job to be strident or to sermonize up there — you can get that somewhere else. I just take great joy in hearing laughter. … That’s what’s nice about coming to a theatre. You sit down and you laugh. You aren’t allowed to do that in church!”
James is originally from Nova Scotia — he has a BA in History from Acadia University — but it was in Toronto, where lives now, that he began his 41-year career in comedy.
Over that time, he’s written and performed for The Second City comedy club, been voted Comedian of the Year at the Canadian Comedy Awards, appeared half a dozen times at the Just for Laughs, Halifax, and Winnipeg Comedy Festivals, written for 22 Minutes, and was a cast member of award-winning satire ‘Made in Canada.’
He starred in his own CBC Television comedy series The Ron James Show for five seasons from 2009 to 2014.
His new book runs the gamut of his life experience, mixing memoir with sharp-witted social commentary, loss and grief with a truly Canadian perspective on the country from an entertainer who’s been coast-to-coast many times.
“I was diligent in the early years of my travels in stand-up in keeping journals,” James explained. “So, I would read these stories about the country in my journals, and the stories people told me about their lives. They gave me windows on their world, so the narrative or the essence of the narrative was already there.”
James’s editor told him he didn’t have to make everything, which freed him to honour the gravity some of his memories needed.
“I was able to explore some emotional depths, and stories that deserved it, like my uncle fighting for his sobriety on the streets of Toronto for two years in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. And the Indigenous man I gave a lift to, from Airdrie to Leduc. He spoke to me at the gas pumps, and it turned out he was from the ‘60s scoop.
“I was able to explore the heartline hum and the soul-note of people and place, rather than just look for laughs. I already know how to get those, after all the years on stage.”
James also did his own Audible audiobook version of All Over the Map, and said he’s very proud of the great reviews he received for that performance.
Nevertheless, he added, it’s clear that he comes down on the side of live performance. He knows his business and he loves it.
“I stretch a pretty eclectic buffet,” he laughed. “I cover everything, from midlife dating to playing hockey growing up, to what it’s like now. The aches and pains of midlife and all these different epiphanies. I’m not gonna lie, I talk about mortality too, try to deal with some of the bigger issues in a comedic fashion.
“People have to get their act together about old age. I mean, I’m feeling better now than I did at 35, but in 20 years the bulk of the baby boom is going to be roaming the home in our Led Zeppelin onesies, just a singalong away from taking a stairway to heaven. So, I’m trying to make the moments matter.”
All Over the Map: Rambles and Ruminations from the Canadian Road is a critically acclaimed National Bestseller available wherever books are sold.
Tickets to Ron James’s Dec. 4 show at the Mae Wilson are at Sasktix.ca or by calling the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre at 306-693-4700.
