What's Happening

Deep cuts to the CBC made comic Ron James fearful for the survival of The Ron James Show.

The Mother Corp. has been instructed to reduce its budget by $115 million over three years. In the face of this, shows dropped like gnats hovering over a peat fire.

"There were more rumours than [during] the last days of the fall of Berlin," James said in a phone interview.

Happily for him, The Ron James Show, which debuted in 2009, is back for another season. The "affably subversive" program, which intersperses skits with James' stand-up routines, manages to average about 500,000 viewers in a tricky Friday-night slot, he said.

While James - performing Sunday night at the Royal Theatre - is thrilled to remain in the television game, he is less pleased with the Harper government dictating the cutbacks...

RON James can't shut up.

Whether the topic is "sphincter-twisted barristers," or Alberta's dueling conservative parties, the comic has no interest in his right to remain silent.

"I can't shut up," he says before repeating himself in his breathless maritime lilt. "I can't shut up. It's like Farley Mowatt said to me, 'If you didn't talk, you'd blow up.'"

Far from a character defect, James' verbosity has made him one of Canada's best-loved comedians, nearly as closely associated with the Great White North as universal healthcare and French fries smothered in curds and gravy.

James is scheduled to bring his collection of japes, jabs, rants and rage to the Centennial Theatre May 4 and 5.