Don Ferguson: The Farce isn't with him

Enlarge Image

Don Ferguson (CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES)

Don Ferguson knows this time will be different.

The veteran Canadian funnyman has been to the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival before, but his appearance this year -- as host of The Holiday Show, half of Friday night's (April 17) double-header Super Gala at Pantages Playhouse Theatre -- represents his first public performance since Royal Canadian Air Farce signed off for good last New Year's Eve.

"It will be a bit strange," Ferguson said during a recent telephone interview from Toronto. "I mean, Air Farce was something that we did for 35-plus years, so to suddenly not be representing that will be very different. It became as much a part of life as breathing.

"You know how those classic English millhorses, when they're retired, are put out into a field and they walk around a tree, clockwise, all day long because that's all they've ever done? I hope I'm not at that stage, but I can really understand how they feel that way."

Since Air Farce said farewell after 16 seasons on CBC-TV, Ferguson and his castmates have maintained a presence at the public broadcaster's Toronto headquarters, spending several weeks dismantling the show's studio, sets and assorted props and costumes and going through the slow, sad process of clearing out their offices.

"We were in season 16 (on TV), so we had all those years' worth of sets and wardrobe, wigs and props that we kept stored in the (CBC) building," he explained. "We had a fully equipped carpentry shop we operated, about 15 minutes' drive away. So just getting rid of that stuff in an orderly fashion took a while.

"We've kept a few wigs, in case we ever do a New Year's Eve special again. I personally kept very little (as souvenirs). I have the chicken cannon in my office; that's probably going to go in the CBC museum. I've got a life-sized cast of my head, which was done years ago for a wig fitting -- it looks like me, somewhere in between dead, asleep and grumpy.... I also kept a wooden cow that we used to shoot cow-plop across the set once, and a few photographs. Other than that, I haven't kept much. Most of the memories are well documented by the videos of the show."

Ferguson and longtime comedic co-conspirator Roger Abbott plan to continue their creative collaboration, looking for other production opportunities and helping Air Farce's less-experienced alumni develop future projects.

"Some of our younger writers have come up with projects they'd like to get going, so we've said we'll help them with that," he explained. "I don't know how much success they're going to have, to be honest. It's a very tough business; getting a pilot made is like winning the lottery, and then you've got to keep winning the lottery over and over, because it's got to go from pilot stage to broadcast, and then it has to be picked up as a series.

"Air Farce was a weird aberration in broadcasting, because it lasted so long -- more than 35 years in all, and 16 years on television -- where most shows are considered a success if they last three to five seasons."

Ferguson said he's satisfied with the manner in which Air Farce wound down its 16-year run on CBC-TV, but added that the well-received New Year's finale wasn't exactly the vision Farce's founding members had for the show.

"It was great of CBC to let us do the final half-season and the New Year's special as a sendoff," he said. "Fans loved it; the New Year's show was watched by literally millions of people.

"What I still wish would have happened, and what our plan was all along, was that the younger cast would take over and Roger, Luba (Goy) and I would retreat into the background.... The plan was basically to turn it over to the next generation and keep it going. I still think it was a very good franchise -- it's a lot cheaper than Sophie, for instance, which probably costs three times as much to make and attracts about a third of the audience."

As for the pressures of preparing for his first post-Farce performance, Ferguson said he's glad The Holiday Show addresses a topic to which pretty much everyone can relate.

"Practically everybody has a story about a holiday that was horrible," he laughed.

In fact, Ferguson will arrive in Winnipeg for the festival right after returning from a vacation trip to Argentina -- which could, he only really sort of hopes, provide some inspiration for the holiday-themed gala.

"I'll be in Argentina for three weeks; it's a trip that was planned before the festival became part of my schedule," he said. "Maybe something really horrible will happen, and I'll get a funny story out of it."

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 9, 2009 E12