From the comedy heights of Colorado to the lows of a strip bar in Western Canada, comedian Derek Edwards has been there.

Mr. Edwards will be one of the comedians in the upcoming Just for Laughs Bermuda summer event from August 21 to 24 at the Fairmont Southampton Mid-Ocean Amphitheatre.

Other comedians at the Just for Laughs Bermuda summer event will include Bermuda's own Jonathan Young, and international comedians Jo Koy and Finesse Mitchell.

Mr. Edwards has appeared frequently in Just for Laughs comedy festival events in Canada and was the winner of the Vail Comedy Invitational in Vail, Colorado.

Mr. Edwards told The Royal Gazette in a telephone interview that he was inspired to become a comedian by watching television.

"I used to see it on the television," he said. "Geez, didn't it look like a lot of fun? People would be falling out of their chairs laughing. And then the comedian would just sit down and talk to someone.

"I thought, 'you get to wear a nice suit and everyone loves you'. It wasn't a bad way to earn a million dollars. So basically, I got into comedy through sheer ignorance."

Mr. Edwards spent his early years in comedy doing manual labour to make a living.

"You can get by," he said, "but you have to plug away at it. For the first four or five years I was a house painter and a damn good one. I could move them extension ladders around."

He said it is hard to pigeon hole what he uses as subject matter. Many of his skits attempt to answer those age old questions such as why do all the bank tellers go on lunch break during the bank's busiest times.

To the uninitiated, Mr. Edwards has an accent not unlike the characters in the movie 'Fargo'. But the accent is actually from Northern Ontario.

He blamed it on the weather.

"We all came up with a good accent to stop ourselves from going crazy," he said. "I am from Ontario, eh? I am from a little town way up in the north called Timmins."

Timmins is famed for being the birthplace of country music singer Shania Twain.

"We didn't cross paths," said Mr. Edwards. "There are 30,000 people spread out in Timmins. It is a mining town. It takes up a lot of acreage."

Mr. Edwards said Ms Twain once came back for the high school sock hop, but he was otherwise engaged.

"I did meet her once when she came back for a high school reunion," he said. "She was really nice. She didn't come with an entourage or nothin'."

He said that while trying to make it as a comedian it is natural to bomb once in a while.

"There are so many shades of bad," he said. "I had a rough go at a biker bar once. It wasn't really set up for subtle nuance. It was a strip bar in Western Canada.

"There was a time that night when a 300 pound plus guy picked up a chair and was coming to me. 'Does this end soon?' I thought.

"Eventually, the owner said 'Jesus, Gus, put that down'. Gus was eventually embarrassed off the dance floor."

Mr. Edwards was much better received at the Vail Comedy Invitational in Colorado. He was picked from 700 other comedians.

"I was the only Canadian guy," said Mr. Edwards. "They were very kind to me. I guess we Canadians are so silly they like laughing at us."

He said winning that competition opened doors for him, and he had the chance to work in Las Vegas, Nevada.

"I have also worked in Cork, Ireland, on the south coast. It was a pretty town. They get ten thousand inches of rain per year.

"They are doing really good exporting poets and philosophical thought."

Mr. Edwards said he is now excited to be coming to Bermuda.

"The guy that booked the engagement in Bermuda is so mad that he has to go to Scotland to the Edinburgh Festival," said Mr. Edwards.

"I haven't met the fellows on the show. It is nice to meet veterans."

He said as soon as he is off the plane he will be inspecting the Island in search of good laugh material. "I do a lot of stuff about marriage," he said. "That tends to resonate with the crowd. That will span the borders."

He said he doesn't tend to use his strip bar experience in his comedy routines.

"Some images you don't like to dredge out again," he said.

When The Royal Gazette talkedto Mr. Edwards by phone he was getting ready for an evening Just for Laughs event in downtown Toronto.

"It will be an outdoor show for the Just for Laughs guys," said Mr. Edwards. "If I can do well down there it might be my finest hour.

"I will be competing with the ding ding of street cars, sirens, and traffic."

But he said he felt more like a success after a challenge.

"If the crowd paid a bunch of money and is hanging on your every word, then you don't feel as much as though you've achieved something," he said. "It is when you are pulling teeth – that is when you feel success."

To other up-and-coming comedians his advice was to first have a good paying job on hand.

"That is really paramount in case you should fall out of comedy," he said. "Also, keep trying to do new stuff. Don't fall back on somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes that work well. It gets out of topical after a while. You forget how to do it."

This year's Just for Laughs Bermuda summer event will be 100 percent reserved seating. Tickets are $55. Show and dinner sold separately. Tickets available online at www.bdatix.bm or in person at Steppin Up Menswear (Crawl Hill), Transact (Internet Lane, Reid Street), Picture Perfect (Heron Bay Plaza).

Visit www.comedyevent.bm for complete information.