Comedian Ron James is coming to Surrey on a “Full Throttle” tour of Canada next spring.
The May 1 date at Bell Performing Arts Centre is posted to ronjames.ca, and also on the theatre’s website.
The award-winning Canadian comic has been selling out theatres for 15 years with his “marathon, side-splitting, kinetically charged performances,” according to the event post.
“Marshaling a comedian’s eye for satire and a writer’s ear for language, Ron takes his audience on a breath-taking, non-stop roller coaster ride, cutting a wide swath through contemporary culture with his razor-sharp ribald wit, uncompromising standards and unique, poetically honed delivery – a stand-out amongst ‘stand-ups.'”
James’ Twitter bio says he’s “a Comedian doing my best to make sense of the chaos in the daily march through Life’s bright fury.”
Tickets are $60 for his show at the Bell, located at Sullivan Heights Secondary.
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James has nine one-hour comedy specials under his belt, plus five seasons starring in his own series, The Ron James Show.
Born and raised in Nova Scotia, James brought his “Full Throttle” tour to some cities in B.C. in 2019, and he’s been writing a book called All Over the Map.
“It’s an embrace of people and place, all the travels I’ve done in the last 20 years,” James told Black Press Media in September. “It’s where I’ve been, where I am and where I’m going: embracing this country that has provided me with a living for the last 20 years. I call it my ‘anti-fame’ book because it’s all about real people I’ve met on the road.”
His fall tour coincided with the federal election.
“There was a day when you could poke fun at the politicians without incurring the wrath of the audience but since populism has hijacked the system, it’s very easy to alienate the room,” James said. “I’ve always believed you have to be an equal opportunity offender. So you hit all parties equally. In the U.S. you can pick a Republican side or a Democratic side and have half the country hating your guts and still have seven times the population of Canada endorsing your work. We don’t have that luxury here.
“I’ve never known Canadians to like their comedy mean. They’ll give comedians from other countries a great deal of rope but [when talking about themselves] they like a certain tone to their funny. I’ve always found that I get more mileage if I’m affably subversive.”
James said he likes to “land on a lot of different bases” with his comedy show.
“I like to spread a fairly eclectic buffet for everybody,” he explained. “I like people to leave my shows feeling better about themselves, and their lives, and their world than they did when they came in. We’re all so burdened by this existential angst that the world is going to hell in a handcart. I think it’s the comedian’s job to lighten the load on life’s journey and carry the knapsack for a while for the two hours he’s on that stage.”
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