The first onstage laugh I received was while playing Pinocchio in a grade 7 school play. I was sporting a rubber Cyrano de Bergerac nose for the lengthy proboscis effect, and it fell off mid-scene. Picking it up casually, I tossed it at the exiting Cricket. The audience roared with laughter and I was hooked.

 As I look back at my more than fifty appearances on stage, film and TV, the common thread is usually comedy. Even during dramatic endeavours like ‘Misery’ and ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’, I found areas where I could extract humour and elicit the desired response from the audience. Joy to my ears.

During a run of ‘I’ll be Back Before Midnight’, my character, George the farmer, appears to get beaten to death. The author, Peter Colley, was in the audience and came backstage after the show. We sat enjoying a beer together while he told me I played the part just as he had written and imagined it. What pleased him most was the humour I managed to infuse into his devilish character.

The reality is, most people need and want to laugh. That realization has inspired most everything I do, whether it is performing live, or through my written word.  

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