You know it's going to be a great conversation when you say "hello" and the response is
"hello Christine, this is Steve Smith from the Red Green fiasco."
Smith will bring his beloved Canadian icon, Red Green, fully equipped with duct tape, dressed in plaid and suspenders, to the Vanier Hall stage for the first time Wednesday for his How To Do Everything Show.
"This show is all new material," Smith said, in Red Greenese. "The only thing old in this show is me -- and maybe some of you!"
Smith has taken on many roles on television, stage, and the big screen, as producer, writer and star, as well as author and syndicated newspaper columnist.
"I want the full experience, you know," said Smith. "I bought the all-day pass and I want to go on every ride!"
Smith is new to the stage, with lots of screen experience.
"After one of my live shows, I had a kid about 22 years old come up to me and say 'You make me look forward to getting old', and I thought what a great comment that is because I'm having more fun now than ever," said Smith. "I'm loving doing these shows. This is the first time I've been on stage and I'm doing this thing alone - and I'm finally getting along with everyone in the cast!"
Red Green's latest book is coming out in time for the tour called The Beginner's Guide to Women.
"I've written books before and they were published by Random House - they're a real publisher and they're good. They were the ones that got me out of retirement. I was doing nothing and then the How To Do Everything book came out when they told me that if I wanted to write something they would publish it and I really enjoyed that. Then the tour came out of that because when you write a book you gotta go promote it. And I don't wanna do those book signings where you sell 11 books. I said to Random House I would buy 12 books not to go!"
So instead of that he did the show tour.
The one-man show has incredible laugh-out loud potential, and covers a wide range of topics, he said.
"The first tour ended in North Carolina in September 2012 and so I just threw all that away and started with a blank page," Smith said. "It's all brand new stuff. When you're doing comedy you can't do your greatest hits."
There are a lot of opportunities to laugh. At the end of the last tour Smith wrote it all out and it was 22 pages. Then he counted the opportunities to laugh because that's just the kind of guy he is and he counted 400. When he took a look at this show, there are more than 500.
"Red Green is so wrong, he belongs in 1952 or something," said Smith. "It's that kind of comedy. There is no anger, there's no malice. It's fast paced and it's not obscene, I can touch on subjects that other people touch on but I don't have to hit it with a hammer."
Tickets are on sale at all Ticketmaster outlets.
