I wanted to interview Nicholas Rice, intrigued by the show he’s doing at Red Sandcastle Theatre, Another Side Of Rice. He’s a story-teller and an actor.

A Side of Rice was on last March at the Red Sandcastle Theatre. And January 29 – February 1, Another Side of Rice offers the audience a chance to encounter a different side of Nicholas Rice.

I had to ask him questions. I also plundered his Facebook profile, concluding with some of his poetry, that perhaps represents a different side of Nicholas Rice.

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Barczablog: Are you more like your father or mother?

Nicholas Rice: Now there’s a neat question.   

From my mum I think I get a sense of wackiness, a love of wordplay.   She was a lexicon into herself – the English language was her silly putty.   I’m grateful to her for that.

From my dad – there’s a sense of gentle-manliness, of gentlemanliness.   I address this in my show, in fact.    I lost my dad when I was still very little.   I’ve spent my whole life trying, with varying degrees of success, to be like him.

BB: What is the best or worst thing about what you do?

Nicholas Rice: That thing I do – there’s just something so sweet about standing before an audience (or before a group of students) and playing to them – embracing them with my eyes and my voice.   I do mean ‘sweet’ – this is a sweet spot for me.   Storytelling allows me to share the warmth of my heart.   And man oh man, we’re in an abysmally dark age.    Does our world ever need hefty doses of warmth and light right now.

BB: Who do you like to listen to or watch?   

Nicholas Rice: I’m an old Boomer.  I can’t get enough of the Beatles or the Stones.   I love Billy Joel.   Stephen Sondheim – there are some magnificent interviews with him on YouTube.   And I love watching old Dick Cavett YouTubes, two in particular:  Don Rickles and Beverly Sills in the same episode – and in another episode, Oscar Peterson.

Don’t faint, but I actually hold a second-degree Black Belt in goju-style karate.   For many years I was a real keener, training several days a week.   I no longer train, but I still value my association with the dojo, and I maintain that the karate dojo is the best acting class I ever attended.    Truth is, I have little aptitude for the sport – yet it doesn’t matter.   Just show up, keep showing up, chuck your fear away and cherish the practice-time:  you’ll improve!

BB: What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?   

Nicholas Rice: I wish I were a quicker study.   It takes me a long time to learn a chunk of text.   I need constant repetition.   Yet I try not to be afraid of the process – see my ‘karate’ answer above.

BB:  If someone wanted to be a story-teller, how would you suggest they start.   

Nicholas Rice: Find some storytelling events and put your name in.   Or go to a few of these events first, see what they’re like, and then put your name in.  You may be scared, but that’s fine, everyone is.   Hell, I’m scared right now.  How to start?   Just start!

BB: I saw you on IMDB. You have over fifty entries including some famous films! What were some of your favourite moments?

Nicholas Rice: I loved doing Look Who’s Talking.  

Nicholas Rice: John Travolta was the best colleague imaginable – funny, supportive, warm.  

And so was Kirstie Alley, may she rest in peace.   Our first day on set, I asked her if she’d had much time to see Vancouver.   She said no, they just had to concentrate on the shoot.  Then she asked about me – I was out west with my wife and daughter, settling up my mum’s estate.   “How old is your little girl?” Kirstie asked.   Eighteen months, I said.   That was on Day One.   Several weeks went by, I had tons of down time, and then finally it was my last shoot-day.  I did my final shot, it was a picture-wrap for me, and I gave Kirstie a kiss on the cheek and thanked her and wished her well.  She said, “You take care of that little girl of yours now, y’hear?” She’d remembered.   I was deeply touched by that.  

BB: Do you have a favourite story-teller?   

Nicholas Rice: There’s a terrific Fringe artist, T.J. Dawe.   He’s Vancouver-based, I think.   His work is constantly enthralling.   If you find he’s playing at a Fringe near you, run to see him – you’ll be a Dawe-fan for life.

BB: Wowzers… He’s done a lot. Here’s an example.

BB: Red Sandcastle Theatre is a very small venue, as intimate as a classroom.

Nicholas Rice: I did my original solo-show, A Side of Rice, at the Sandcastle last March.   I love the intimacy of the place. 

The good thing about A Side of Rice and Another Side of Rice is that these shows are just me telling stories to people I regard as friends.   The show is clean and simple.   There are no sound cues or lighting cues, no pyrotechnics.   There’s no amplification.   So many shows these days are mic’d to death, mic’d into unintelligibility .   It’s ironic – the more amplification there is, the less an audience is able to understand. 

BB: I hear you!

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Another Side of Rice is coming January 29, 2026 – February 1, 2026, the first three at 8:00, the last one a matinee at 2:00. Click here for tickets.

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I found these on Nicholas Rice’s Facebook profile.

Sonnet:
I’d last put on a pretty pair of Pumas
and worn ‘em till that cataclysmic day;
and now, despite all pessimistic rumours,
they fit upon my feet again okay.

Perhaps you will recall the end of summer
when all my normal calm intelli-gence
deserted me and, temporarily dumber,
I vaulted off a godforsaken fence.

Unprecedented pain was instantaneous
as was a long ferocious flood of swearing
to mark my comminuted right calcaneus
which swelled till it was well past all repairing.

And yet the time has hobbled on, and now
the Pumas seem to fit again somehow.

Sonnet:
At Princess Marg

I’ve never seen the waiting-room so crowded —
can cancer have run rampant overnight?
A sense of grave uncertainty has shrouded
us men who claim survival as our right.

The system, as we know too well, is flawed;
far better to be sick in Scandinavia —
and yet our land still owes a loving nod,
a bow to Tommy Douglas as a saviour.

For now my current state of mind is calm;
I try to stay considerate and kind —
my teacup runneth over, says the Psalm;
my pee-cup doth as well, but never mind.

And thus your correspondent sits and waits,
in gratitude he’s not now in the States.

Sonnet:
for Joe Rice and Asher Rose

A twenty-dollar ticket at the Roy?
I’d willingly have paid five times as much.
My bubbe might have murmured “Bozhe moy,
this Manny Ax has such a subtle touch!”

To sit amid a concentrated crowd
as part of a divine collective ear —
I tell ya, hive, it makes a fella proud
to savour phrases effortless and clear.

It’s true Toronto’s not the town it was;
the traffic-jams alone are cause for fleeing,
and yet I hesitate to leave because
at times there’s this exquisiteness of being.

So try to snag a seat at the last minute;
for twenty bucks it’s heaven and you’re in it.

BB: I saw this picture on his Facebook profile, posted at the end of October, commenting on Movember, as you can see in the caption he posted.