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Red Green hangs up his touring hat on a high

What: Red Green Where: McPherson Playhouse When: Monday, Sept. 30, 7 p.m. Tickets: $71.50 at the Royal Theatre box office (250-386-6121) or rmts.bc.
Red Green.jpg
Steve Smith, a.k.a Red Green.

What: Red Green
Where: McPherson Playhouse
When: Monday, Sept. 30, 7 p.m.
Tickets: $71.50 at the Royal Theatre box office (250-386-6121) or rmts.bc.ca
Note: Red Green’s tour also stops tonight (Saturday) at the Port Theatre in Nanaimo and Sunday at the Sid Williams Theatre in Courtenay

Steve Smith — the soft-spoken comic behind the suspender-wearing handyman character Red Green — is coming to the end of his This Could Be It tour, which was expected to be the first of several Red Green retirement tours.

With one month left to go on his run through Canada, Smith is coming clean about the future, however. “This is it,” Smith said Thursday, from a tour stop in Prince George. “I know it’s called This Could Be It, but this is it.”

When he planned the tour a year ago, it was meant to suggest retirement was looming for the beloved titular character of The Red Green Show, which ran on stations across Canada from 1991 until 2006. But midway through a run of U.S. dates that got underway in March, he announced an additional round of appearances in Canada, knowing the tour would be his last.

“The response from the audience in the U.S. was so great, it felt like it completed a circle — there was a finality to it,” Smith said. “I have certain instincts that I trust and one of them is knowing when to leave the party. I’m not going to be able to top this. I knew if I did another tour, it would be a diminished version of this one.”

Smith, who turns 74 on Christmas Eve, has made a living in the entertainment business for 48 years, the highlight of which has been tours under the Red Green moniker, he said.

After an award-winning run on CBC Television in Canada and PBS Television in the U.S., The Red Green Show aired its 300th and final episode in 2006.

In the years since, he has kept the character alive through various channels, and is still working on new projects as Red Green, including a possible podcast. But touring won’t be on the table, Smith said.

“That will be the toughest thing to give up. These days, you can see anything on your phone. But live performance, you’re either in the room or you’re not.”

The Red Green Show offered a homespun take on sketch comedy by parodying do-it-yourself outdoor-adventure programs, from a fictional Ontario town.

Originally produced for a TV station in Hamilton, Ont., The Red Green Show was an immediate hit, which led to a new broadcast deal with YTV in 1993. It was moved to Global in 1994 before finding a permanent home on CBC in 1997. It has remained in syndication ever since.

Smith tried sending Red Green into retirement once the show wrapped, “but it did not go well,” he said with a laugh. Smith grew tired of playing golf as a full-time pursuit, so he developed a version of the TV show for the stage, with standup sets in character presented as “lodge meetings.” The live shows still draw incredibly well — 21 of his 35 shows on the U.S. leg of This Could Be It were sold out — which makes it tough for Smith to walk away.

“Red Green is a great platform if I want to express myself, and I do need to express myself. I’m not saying Red Green is dead. But touring as Red Green, that’s over.”

The undercurrent of his final tour is gratitude, according to Smith. He’s bringing video messages from popular characters from the show to the stage, which will be shown between handyman tips — usually involving duct tape — and marriage advice.

He ends the show on a heartfelt note each night, which he believes is important for those who have supported him. It’s a fitting coda: Smith never went for the jugular as Red Green, occasionally breaking the fourth wall during the TV show in order to let audiences known they were in on the joke, too.

When he walks off stage for the final time as Red Green, following his Oct. 30 performance at the Georgian Theatre in Barrie, Ont., Smith said it will be with his head held high. “It’s not sad for me. It’s not me getting out of a bad contract, or I’m bankrupt and I need to do this. I’ve really enjoyed this, and I want to go out while it’s still fun. It’s a happy time.”

mdevlin@timescolonist.com