Canadian comedian Ron James had the Sault in stitches last evening during his Algoma Fall Festival performance at the Kiwanis Community Theatre Centre.
Material in his Take No Prisoners tour is doused heavily in Canadiana - Tim Hortons, hockey, hunting, ice fishing, politics, the environment, and coping with the frosty climate - as he reminisced about life before hand-held technology took over.
"If there's any theme to my show, it's of the average man standing in one place running as fast as he can trying to make sense of a rapidly changing planet," James told Local2's Shaylan Spurway in a recent interview.
With his finger on the local pulse, he also scored points for Sault-specific material that included the Group of Seven, the steel plant and our significant Italian population.
And he immediately won over the audience by opening with a brown water joke.
"It's important to strike a balance between your own artistic needs and audience expectations," James said during the interview.
Even his few fumbles were brilliant as they lead him on the occasional tangent, to which he remarked: "Some of this material is just for me."
Maybe these fumbles were on purpose, maybe not.
Either way, the 56-year-old proud East-Coaster delivered two hours of the astute playful wisdom that's made him a Canadian comedy leader.
Let's hope it's not another 10 years before Mr. James returns to Sault Ste. Marie.
The Algoma Fall Festival continues on Tuesday, October 14 with Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap tour at the Kiwanis Community Theatre Centre.
For ticket information about this and all other Algoma Fall Festival events, please click here.
To enjoy Ron James' full interview on Local2, please click here.
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