One of Canada’s funniest comedians paid a visit to Drumheller this week. Ron James, star of The Ron James Show on CBC and numerous stand up performances throughout the country, including Just for Laughs, was in town filming an “Ode to the Road”.
inSide Drumheller had the opportunity to sit down for lunch at the Dinosaur Trail Golf and Country Club with Ron and learn about Drumheller’s starring role and a bit about Ron himself.
How’s lunch?
“This is a great looking club! Real chicken! [tastes sandwich] This is, hands down, the best club sandwich I’ve had in this country.”
So, what is an “Ode to the Road”?
“Road Odes are a flavour of a larger meal. It’s the most quintessential element of Canadiana in my show.
We like to fly under the radar. They’re not spectacle driven, they’re authentically driven with real people and real places that speak and represent the heart of people and place.
In all the places we land, we try to find comedic mileage in them, be affably subversive, and its all meant to be fun for everyone from 8 to 80. If they get the essence of the rebel voice in some of the pieces, that’s great.”
Drumheller will be in an “Ode to the Road” in season four of the show then?
“We thought Drumheller was a unique little place. We wanted to go to the Stampede and having Drumheller down the road worked out great. It’s got so many dinosaur bones, the Tyrrell, and there’s the Creation Science Museum in Big Valley, which is a really interesting juxtaposition we’re going to explore. We try to give everybody their due, have it affably subversive, fun, and embrace the mystery of people and place.”
Is this the first time you’ve been to Drumheller?
“Yeah man! I’ve always played Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie, and Fort McMurray. I’ve always passed the Drumheller sign and I always meant to turn off, but never got a chance.”
Now that you’ve turned off, what do you think?
“It’s brilliant! It’s otherworldly with the badlands. I’m looking forward to smelling the sage. I’ve got a day off, so I’m heading to Horsethief Canyon to do some hiking, it’ll be amazing.”
You must see a lot of the country through these Odes.
“We’re having a riot and travelling the road with a select group of people who get it and see their faces light up when they meet different people and see different parts of the country. It really warms my heart to see other people experiencing Canada with the same enthusiasm and authentic soul note that I’ve had for the last 15 years.”
You’ve been travelling the country for a long time with your stand up act. What brought you to a career in comedy?
“I was broke and out of work in Los Angeles in the early 1990’s. I was down there to do a series, which was cancelled. I stayed for three years and struggled. I raised my daughter until she was five down there and thought there was no way I wanted to have her indoctrinated into the American education system, so we came home.
The American dream is that the individual is responsible for what they get out of life, which is sort of an Alberta ethos, I suppose. I applied that lesson during some days of struggle to achieve my Canadian dream. All I wanted was to come home and embrace the mythology of the country I love.
I developed my stand up act in 1995, worked for free, did stage work whenever I could, and basically started over. I had spent 17 years being an actor, waiting for the phone to ring and someone else giving me a job. Then I wanted to use my brains and make sense of the world on my own terms.”
How have things worked out since then?
“I love it! It’s everything I wanted to get out of the game, which is to make a living, work with good people, and embrace the country.
You don’t have a life for seven months of the years, but I had a lot of time to watch the paint dry when I was out of work. I swore twenty years ago if I had steady work, I’d never complain about it and I don’t.”
After years doing stand up and various other projects, how did the show happen?
“I had written a pilot and they asked me to write something that skewered a bit closer to what I do on stage. I incorporated stand up, sketch, and travelling the road.”
The Ron James Show will be starting it’s fourth season this fall. For more information about the show, visit www.cbc.ca/ronjames.
