In private, Mike Ward is almost endearingly gentle, so devoid of any malice does he appear to us. Those close to him also praise his generosity, never calculated, and his modesty, which also inspired the title of his new show. Suffice to say that he has everything of the ideal son-in-law. Still, on stage, it’s as if an uncontrollable impulse takes hold of him: he can’t help but go beyond the limits of good taste.
Mike Ward may have recently crossed the threshold of fifty, but he is still inhabited by this insolent teenager who feels this constant need to go too far. “I’m going to be like this my whole life. What has changed, however, is that I no longer want to shock at all like when I started. People think that because of the style of humor that I do, I enjoy provoking. But not at all ! I hate controversy. It’s the thing I hate the most in the world,” said the comedian, who despite himself has experienced his share of controversies in recent years.
No doubt he could have spared some of them if he had a more sanitized style. But what do you want, he’s stronger than him. “There’s nothing I find funnier than a joke still moved today. »
“I think it comes from my childhood. When I was young, I had a little high-pitched voice, I was very small, I really looked like an angel. And I noticed that when I said something rude, people were surprised and laughed. It’s this effect of surprise that I always try to recreate,” confides Mike Ward in a burst of introspection, before taking a sip of his latte with oat milk.
In this café in Vieux-Longueuil where he arranged to meet us, he thought for a moment about ordering his coffee with cow’s milk, before changing his mind. Vegan for five years, Mike Ward has now defrocked. The comedian is a new man. He is falling in love with his new partner and he seems more peaceful to us. His legal troubles are now behind him, the Supreme Court having ruled in his favor in 2021 at the end of the highly publicized case between him and Jérémy Gabriel.
The host of Listening, the most popular podcast in Quebec, feels like he’s floating on a cloud these days, and his state of mind is inevitably reflected on stage. “When I wrote Black, my last show, I was in the depths of my depression. It was during the trial. I needed to vent about certain topics, like the Human Rights Commission. Nothing was going well in my life at the time, whereas today I am super happy. So, yes, my new show will be lighter. But it’s still the same kind of humor,” warns Mike Ward, who is very aware that his style is not for everyone.
Unwanted allies
This new one man show bears the name of Modest. A self-deprecating title for a comedian sometimes inhabited by ideas of grandeur. Like breaking the Guinness record for the greatest number of tickets sold for a podcast recording, a feat he ended up achieving on July 22, 2022 by filling the Bell Center for an episode of Listening.
“The titles of my shows always start from a joke. Speaking of the next show With my team, I joked that we could fill the Bell Center again, this time for the premiere of the new show, and that we could invite Snoop Dogg to open. It was so ridiculous. Modest, that’s where it comes from, quite simply,” says the king of humor trash in Quebec.
To add to the joke, Mike Ward will be accompanied on stage by a bust sculpted in his likeness. We can also get a taste of the said statue, which almost has a Maoist side, on the poster for the show.
He refuses, however, to further fuel the cult of personality that some of his admirers devote to him. Nevertheless, few stars in Quebec can boast of having a pool of fans as devoted as Mike Ward, elevated to the rank of martyr by the fighters for the sacrosanct freedom of expression after the Jérémy Gabriel affair.
“American comedian Sam Tripoli once joked that the only people for whom freedom of expression was important were comedians and racists. And that’s very fair. We don’t always have the allies we want. So once in a while, I clean up my fans. I don’t want them to be embarrassing. The beauty of podcast, is that it pushes away those who love me for the wrong reasons. On stage, I can crack a joke a little heavy and people will interpret it all wrong. But in a podcast, there is context. People get to know us. They can better understand the intention behind a joke,” says Mike Ward.
Unexpected success
Listening, which he sees himself running for a long time to come, now generates two million listens each month. As for the tickets for his new one man showthey sold out at breakneck speed. His 25-show residency, which began Friday at Club Soda and which precedes the tour across Quebec, is sold out until May.
In short, Mike Ward is not to be pitied financially. Let’s say that his life is less “modest” than when he declared an annual income of $1,200 to the taxman. In his early days, Mike Ward had to eat his bread black. When he left the National School of Humor in 1995, at the same time as Martin Matte and Laurent Paquin, he was the only one to offer such crude humor in Quebec. English-speaking audiences have long been more receptive than French-speakers to his style imported from the United States. Over time, it became the opposite.
“On the English-speaking side, I felt from year to year that freedom was shrinking. There really are subjects that we can no longer talk about. On the French-speaking side, we are lucky, we can still talk about very delicate subjects and the public will give us time to hear what we have to say before judging. In my last show, for example, I had a number about trans people. I even went to present it at Fierté Montréal in an evening hosted by Mado Lamotte. In English, it would have been unthinkable that a straight man could do a number on that,” illustrates the two-time winner of the Olivier for Comedian of the Year.
This unexpected success in Quebec leads him to believe that those who shout from the rooftops “that we can no longer say anything” are ultimately completely wrong. Yes, the offended of all kinds have found in social networks a way to express their dissatisfaction. But it is still possible to resist and say everything.
“This speech, “we can no longer say anything”, just helps comedians like me. It makes my fans love me even more seeing that I still allow myself to say everything. I think because of that, it’s easier to sell tickets than before,” concludes Mike Ward.