WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE?
What’s Your Favourite...?
Comedian and CAA Member Mary Walsh on ambushing Jean Chrétien, the importance of being funny and the upside to bad books.
By Nicole Keen
MARY WALSH IS A COMEDY LEGEND. She also feels like a friend. Maybe it’s because of her self-deprecating wit, which, she jokes, is a Newfoundland birthright, or because of her tenure on the seminal CBC comedy shows Codco and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. But whatever the reason, Walsh seems right at home on our small screens, where she most recently appeared as nosy neighbour Mildred on The Missus Downstairs. When not in front of the camera, Walsh is home in St. John’s, working away on her new book of essays or spending time with her beloved goldendoodle, Bowser.
Many of Signal Hill’s hiking trails boast breathtaking views of St. John’s and the Avalon Peninsula. | PHOTOS: COURTESY OF MARY WALSH; NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR TOURISM
What does your ideal day off look like?
I walk Signal Hill every day, and now that I have a dog, of course, I have to do it whether I want to or not! Sometimes I go to Pippy Park, which is a big woodland kind of place. I like being in the woods.
You had some pretty memorable encounters as Marg Delahunty on This Hour. Are there any that stand out?
Jean Chrétien was so relaxing to ambush. I knew that if I screwed up, he’d be funny anyway.
Who are some comedians you admire?
Of course, Catherine O’Hara and Andrea Martin. And all the people from Codco, like Andy Jones, Greg Malone and Cathy Jones.
“Jean Chrétien was so relaxing to ambush. I knew that if I screwed up, he’d be funny anyway.”
I understand you wanted to be a journalist at one point. Do you have a favourite journalist?
Ray Guy was a brilliant satirist who worked for the [St. John’s] Evening Telegram. I admired him. I kind of wanted to be him. He wrote terribly funny, vicious things about Joey Smallwood, our premier for 22 years, and he was brave in that way because nobody else was really criticizing Smallwood.
What other writers do you love?
Anne Enright, who won the Booker Prize for The Gathering. Doris Lessing used to be my favourite back in the old days. Margaret Drabble. Ann Patchett. [And] I try to listen to bad books when I’m going to sleep because then, I don’t care, you know what I mean? I go to sleep and then I wake up and I’m halfway through. Then I don’t bother to go back because I don’t care.
Thinking back to those early Codco days, what was it about Newfoundland that made it so rich in comedic content?
If you’re not funny in a Newfoundland family, they might not let you sleep inside. Maybe in Toronto, you’d get kudos from your parents for having a paper route or starting a little business, but the only way you’d get kudos from Newfoundland parents is if you were really, really funny. CAA
MARY WALSH IS A COMEDY LEGEND. She also feels like a friend. Maybe it’s because of her self-deprecating wit, which, she jokes, is a Newfoundland birthright, or because of her tenure on the seminal CBC comedy shows Codco and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. But whatever the reason, Walsh seems right at home on our small screens, where she most recently appeared as nosy neighbour Mildred on The Missus Downstairs. When not in front of the camera, Walsh is home in St. John’s, working away on her new book of essays or spending time with her beloved goldendoodle, Bowser.