SEE Magazine
Issue #393: June 14, 2001
Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved

On Stage PREVIEW by Kevin X. Wilson All three of Dave Broadfoot’s sisters became missionaries. No surprise, then, that Broadfoot was touched by an awesome revelation while sitting in a theatre more than half a century ago. "I had been in an audience watching a talent contest with singers and dancers and so on. This one fellow came out. He did a soliloquy from Richard III and he held the audience spellbound. I was amazed, because I travelled to work with the guy every day on the North Van ferry going over to Vancouver. I thought, ‘Holy mackerel! If Jack can do that, maybe I could.’" "It was a revolutionary thought," Broadfoot gasps, as if the fit were still upon him. Then he underlines with a little understatement: "I came from a very different background." The revolution was just beginning. When Broadfoot finally took to the stage himself, "I was just dumbfounded at the laughter coming from the audience. I couldn’t believe it. I thought, ‘This is for me.’ It was the first time I felt comfortable in my life. And, boy, I just poured myself into it." Did he ever. Next year, Broadfoot celebrates his 50th year in show business. Most will remember him as a founding member of The Royal Canadian Air Farce, back when the troupe was a radio-only concern. The monologuist is inextricably tied to characters from those days: the slow-witted hockey journeyman Bobby Clobber, the plodding mountie Corporal Renfrew (later promoted by the RCMP to Sergeant, then Staff Sergeant before eventually receiving a Long Service Award), and the crafty Member for Kicking Horse Pass. But before Air Farce, Broadfoot made appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and worked with Canadian stage legend Mavor Moore in the revue Spring Thaw. Canadians are proud of having fostered many comic talents, but Broadfoot notes that the business of comedy has changed in our home and native land. "Of course, in Canada it was never like it was in England where you had to have every word passed by the Lord Chamberlain’s office if you were in the theatre. We’re our own censors on stage. Always were. That’s why I’ve wondered why we weren’t more outspoken than we were. "At the same time, back then we had some taboos that were self-imposed. You wouldn’t joke about the Queen at all. Nothing about the Royal family." No one was afraid of trouble with the law, says Broadfoot. "It’s the audience that would be upset." Times have changed. "Now all taboos have disappeared," Broadfoot offers ruefully. "The other end of that is that you get young, up-and-coming comedians who have ‘fuck’ as every third word almost and it becomes very distasteful. But not only distasteful: boring and childish. Who needs it? It doesn’t make you feel good. It makes you feel kind of ugly." "I have a young friend who’s a comedian. When he walks out on stage, he says to the audience, ‘I’m going to tell you right up front: I work clean . . . because I want to shock people.’" That’s how Broadfoot likes to shock people, too. You get a hint of it when he refers to an oft-asked query: What’s your favourite audience question. "It doesn’t work that way, it the favourite question of a moment. It keeps changing. My favourite question of the last little while was when somebody said, "In the last U.S. election, one of the people who was elected was a dead guy. Could this idea catch on in Canada?" And I said, "Absolutely not. Our dead guys are appointed by the Prime Minister." The line and the delivery are distinctively Broadfootian: a solid conviction that this absurd epiphany accurately reflects reality. Don’t ask Broadfoot to identify the source of his unique signature. "It’s almost unconscious, I think. I’ve had people say, ‘The thing I admire is that all through the years you’ve had a consistent point of view.’ That’s a learning moment for me because I’m not aware of that myself. I just do what I like and what amuses me."

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