In my 20’s Deborah Jarvis and I did a show called The Two Debs. This man Michael had been taking murder mysteries to the golf clubs around Ontario and we took over his business. I think he sold the business to us. Or I made out with him and then he gave it to us. Details are foggy. So we did a two act all female sketch show Friday and Saturday nights at clubs like the Board Of Trade and the Hunt Clubs in London and Ottawa. We charged anywhere from $1200-1500 dollars a show which is astounding when you think of it. Of course we rented a car, lights and sound ( what were we thinking?) And paid a stage manager, and her hubby John Corbett drove us! AND sometimes he chased un-paying cads into the parking lot. But otherwise we sold them the idea and booked the gigs ourselves. We logged our 10,000 hours and got paid writing and performing our work. You learn a lot from working a golf club every weekend. Like don’t ever say ” “There is a guy with white hair wanting to talk to you in the lobby.” They all have white hair. Of course we bitched and moaned but I think this experience good for us. 1) We got better at doing comedy for folks who weren’t related to us. We delivered the goods whether they were a good or bad audience. 2) It bonded Deborah and I for life. We often held onto each other for dear life after those shows. Drinking wine which we charged to the business. ( (which was really us. We were the business. We had no silent investors. It took several bottles of vino and credit charges to figure this out )

Although we remained writing partners for years: Deborah went on to write for TV story editing many co-pros across Canada and Europe. I went on to write one woman shows and TV.

But doing comedy in places is like that was like going to Nam. We still sit around like vets at the Legion and relive the humour and the horror.