Derek Edwards at Th'YARC May 28

Asked during a recent telephone interview what he could tell us about the new show, Edwards said, “I’m still mulling it over in my head. I’m going over…a quantity of new thoughts and ideas.”

Part of it, he said, is recognizing the things that “you no longer have to care about,” fashion for example.

“Being particularly stylish with your hair, your shoes, whatever,” he said. “I can wear the dorkiest sunglasses. That stuff never really did bug me much, but now it’s cemented in how unimportant it is. And some of it has to do with what other people think of you. I used to feel guilty if somebody beeped their horn at me in traffic. I’d carry that around with me for a couple of days – yeah, that guy was mad, you know. And it’s so freeing to realize that is completely unimportant.”

This will be the second Yarmouth appearance for Edwards, who was here two years ago with his show Sleepless in Gogama.

He was pleased with that first performance at Th’YARC, saying, “It was a blast…I remember something happened to me where I got lost and I was talking about being lost and some of the stuff that happened to me that day and people were on board for that so it boded well and continued nicely.”

Aside from the show and the audience’s response to it, Edwards notes that Th’YARC – a different kind of title for a venue – stayed with him.

“It’s just the uniqueness of the name,” he said. “There’s a number of theatres across the country like the Imperial or the Capital, but there’s only one YARC. For some reason it struck a chord with me and I remember it.”

Edwards – who is from Timmins, Ontario, and lives in the Toronto area – has a connection, through marriage, to southwestern Nova Scotia, his wife being originally from Shelburne County.

He enjoyed the chance to tour the Nova Scotia coast during his last visit to these parts, he said.

Edwards has what promotional material for his new show describes as a “unique curve ball delivery and inimitable quirky perspective.”

Edwards has appeared on programs like CBC Radio’s Madly Off in All Directions and CBC Television’s Just for Laughs festival in Montreal.

Viewers may have caught him on the latter just recently when the CBC aired the Just for Laughs 25th-anniversary special featuring the top 25 Just for Laughs performances as voted by fans.