Clark, Andrew 1966-

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CLARK, Andrew 1966-

PERSONAL:

Born 1966.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Toronto, Canada. Agent—c/o Dean Cooke, The Cooke Agency Inc., 278 Bloor Street East, Suite 305, Toronto, Ontario M4W 3M4, Canada.

CAREER:

Journalist and documentary filmmaker. Eye Weekly, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, comedy critic; Toronto Star, Toronto, comedy critic. Casting director for film documentary The Next Big Thing, National Film Board of Canada/TVOntario, 2003.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Gold Medal, National Magazine Awards; Governor General's Award for Literary Merit nonfiction finalist, 2003.

WRITINGS:

Stand and Deliver: Inside Canadian Comedy, Doubleday (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1997.

A Keen Soldier: The Execution of Second World War Private Harold John Pringle, A. A. Knopf Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2002.

The Next Big Thing (film documentary) National Film Board of Canada/TVOntario, 2003.

Has also written for the Financial Post, Maclean's, New York Times, and Saturday Night. Contributor to Definitely Not the Opera, CBC Radio.

SIDELIGHTS:

Andrew Clark is best known as a comedy critic who has covered Toronto's sketch and stand-up comics for both Eye Weekly and the Toronto Star. He also has experience as a documentary film-maker and has written the book A Keen Soldier: The Execution of Second World War Private Harold John Pringle, which revisits an infamous chapter in Canadian history involving the last soldier to be executed by the military.

In Stand and Deliver: Inside Canadian Comedy, Clark offers a history and explanation of both his beat and Canadian comedy talents. These include performers like the film star Jim Carrey, television comedians the Kids in the Hall, the vaudeville troupe Dumbells, and award-winning comic Sandra Shamas. Canadians have also created a number of venues for performers: Lorne Michaels with Saturday Night Live, Aylesworth and Peppiatt with Hee Haw, and agent, entrepreneur, and club owner Mark Breslin.

Bill Brownstein, reviewing Stand and Deliver for the Montreal Gazette commented, "Clark knows comedy, and he knows comedians.… Like many other people, he also knows the irony: there's nothing funny about a business designed to make people laugh. But until reading this book, few will be aware just how tragic it can be." Libby Stephens wrote in the Toronto Star that Stand and Deliver is "both exhilarating and horrifying—rather like a high school reunion." And in another Montreal Gazette review, Barbara Black called it "both bleak and wildly funny."

Clark's second book, A Keen Soldier: The Execution of Second World War Private Harold John Pringle, is a work of investigative journalism that reconsiders a tragic story Clark first learned from his grandfather. The last soldier to be executed by the Canadian military, Pringle was originally an underage recruit from Ontario who enlisted with his father. The elder Pringle, a World War I veteran, was soon deemed unfit for service and sent home. The son then proved to be a disciplinary problem. Absenteeism, money troubles, and failure to carry out his duties put him in prison for six months in England; he was sent to rejoin his regiment in Italy, but after four months he deserted and became involved with a criminal gang in Rome. When another Canadian deserter was killed, Pringle was convicted of the crime and executed by firing squad two months after the end of the war in Europe. In A Keen Soldier Clark traces this dark story and reveals that there was reasonable doubt that Pringle was the murderer. The author spent two years researching the case, in which Pringle appears to have been used as an example to Italian civilians and other deserters.

Pringle's story interested reviewers, who were quick to identify Clark's passion for his subject and flair as a writer. In Beaver: Exploring Canada's History, Gavin Murphy credited the author with "relentless detective work, strong investigative research, and sheer good luck." Murphy did, however, suggest that "many will feel that the author has lost sight of objectivity" in his sometimes fictionalized approach. An Esprit de Corps reviewer called Clark "a first-class storyteller and a master in the art of tracking down facts years after an event.… [he] has the skill of a novelist and has produced a colourful tale based on the realities of war, concerning real people." Calling the work a "fiction/non-fiction hybrid" in the Toronto Globe & Mail, Scott Taylor commented that Clark "stops short of completely exonerating Pringle, but he does a wonderful job of putting the tragic story of this young soldier into a more complete historical context."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Beaver: Exploring Canada's History, October-November, 2003, Gavin Murphy, review of A Keen Soldier: The Execution of Second World War Private Harold John Pringle, p. 46.

Books in Canada, March, 1998, Richard Lubbock, review of Stand and Deliver: Inside Canadian Comedy, p. 11.

Canadian Forum, September, 1997, Alex Pugsley, review of Stand and Deliver, p. 38.

Esprit de Corps, December, 2002, review of A Keen Soldier, p. 24.

Globe & Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), November 23, 2002, Scott Taylor, review of A Keen Soldier.

Montreal Gazette, May 17, 1997, Bill Brownstein, review of Stand and Deliver, p. C7; June 6, 1998, Barbara Black, review of Stand and Deliver, p. J2.

Quill & Quire, June, 1997, Jason Sherman, review of Stand and Deliver, p. 56.

Textual Studies in Canada, summer, 2001, Brad Serl, review of Stand and Deliver, p. 210.

Toronto Star, May 17, 1997, Libby Stephens, review of Stand and Deliver, p. N14.