Old Enough to Say What I Want: An Autobiography - Tapa dura

Many people know Dave Broadfoot (a.k.a. Sergeant Renfrew of the Mounties, a.k.a. the Member for Kicking Horse Pass, a.k.a. Big Bobby Clobber), but not many know much about his life. Arriving in Toronto in 1952, virtually penniless, he set out to find work – any work – just as CBC-TV was going on the air and Canadian show-business was taking off. He was hired to perform in the yearly Spring Thaw revue, a hotbed of youthful talent, and a comedy career was launched.

A life in show-business – especially in Canada – is not easy and it encourages the multi-talented. Dave Broadfoot has always not only written and performed his own material, but, when work did not immediately appear, has produced and staged his own revues – a sometimes frustrating, sometimes hilarious education in logistics and human nature.

Dave Broadfoot’s career has also paralleled much of the growth of Canadian show-business. Among many other shows and revues, he was a cast member on the Wayne and Schuster show (witnessing the complex relationship between the two great comics), he appeared regularly on the children’s TV show that became Razzle Dazzle, and he was in the revue that launched the Charlottetown Festival. In the early 1970s came the show that would influence his next 20 years and create Canadian comedy history. The Royal Canadian Air Farce, a radio show that was taped in front of a live audience, gave its first performance on December 9, 1973. It is still running – but without Dave Broadfoot as a regular. Despite his admiration and affection for the show and its cast, he decided to leave in 1989, and here, for the first time, he explains why. He performs regularly, and throughout 2001–02 he has toured with his latest one-man show, Dave Broadfoot: The First Farewell Tour.

His incredible energy, his good-nature, his quick wit, and above all his comic gift, have made Dave Broadfoot a household name. This book, peppered throughout with photographs and some of his favourite scripts, is a wonderful way to mark the fiftieth anniversary of an extraordinary career.