RON JAMES
Consistently hailed by audiences and critics from coast to coast, RON JAMES has been selling out theatres in Canada for twenty-five years. This verbal gymnast marries a comedian’s eye for satire with a writer’s ear for language, taking a wide demographic of fans on a non-stop two-hour roller coaster ride, that cuts a wide swath through contemporary culture with razor sharp wit and poetically charged delivery.
"…fast, funny and smart" Montreal Gazette
"…simply the best" Toronto Sun
After graduating with a BA degree in History from Acadia University, (who bestowed him an Honourary Doctorate of the Humanities in 2014) Ron moved from Halifax to Toronto and kicked into gear, what has been a forty-four year career, when he was hired by North America’s premiere breeding ground for comedy, The Second City with whom he was employed for ten years. Throughout the 1980’s Ron appeared in dozens of commercials, television roles and films.
"...a master comedian with a distinctly Canadian viewpoint" St. John’s Telegram
"...scarcely time to breath between fits of helpless laughter" Halifax Herald
In 1990, he and his young family moved to Los Angeles where he joined the cast of ‘My Talk Show’, a television series for Ron Howard’s Imagine TV, that was syndicated to independent channels across America. Upon his return to Canada in ’93, he penned what would be a life changing critically acclaimed one man show, ‘Up and Down in Shaky Town: One Man’s Journey Through the California Dream’.
"…a hilarious brand of funny all his own" Winnipeg Free Press
"…a high wire act of hilarity" Edmonton Journal
Soon after, he stepped full tilt into stand-up comedy and after five years spent honing his craft onstage and touring Canada’s lean club circuit, Ron was invited to launch the premiere season of CTV’s Comedy Network when ‘Shaky Town’ was given its own ninety-minute special. The next several years saw him voted Comedian of the Year at the CCA’s, appear half a dozen times at Just for Laughs, the Halifax and Winnipeg Comedy Festivals, write forThis Hour Has 22 Minutes, join the award-winning satire ‘Made in Canada’ as a regular cast member and star in the first television series of his own creation, ‘Blackfly’, which ran for two seasons on Global Television.
After Blackfly’s cancellation, Ron began trail blazing a coast-to-coast stand-up comedy path into theatrical venues which led to his first one-hour CBC comedy special, ‘The Road Between My Ears’. He would eventually deliver a record breaking nine one-hour comedy specials that fast became a Canadian New Year’s Eve viewing tradition, with the last three out of four garnering 1.3 million viewers each. (Quest for the West; West Coast Wild; Back Home; Manitoba Bound; The Big Picture; Fast Forward; True North/CSA Nominee Best Solo Performance; The High Road) In the middle of this pack he found the time to create, write and star in his own television series, ‘The Ron James Show’, which ran for five years.
"…the funniest man in Canada" Victoria Times Colonist
Never one to rest on his laurels, when the pandemic scuttled live performances for two years the wide world over, Ron penned an instant national best-seller for the prestigious international publisher, Penguin-Random House, called ‘All Over the Map’: Rambles and Rumination’s from the Canadian Road’, which was one of the top ten nominations for the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour.
He is currently the star of the #1 series on BELL FIBE TV, ‘One Man’s Treasure’ and when not on tour, divides his time between a Toronto condo and a seaside sanctuary in Nova Scotia.
“We’ve only got one life, so you might as well make it matter.”
Ron James
