It’s fair to say that Vincent Murphy-Dodds has lived many lives.
At various points during his 70-plus years, he’s been a radio and television host, an auctioneer, an entrepreneur, marketing manager and a producer. His latest gig is as a story performer.
Murphy-Dodds was born in Flin Flon in 1940 and grew up in a small house on Church Street. Decades later, he can still remember it well.
“We had neighbours who were English, Scottish, Polish, Ukrainian, Austrian, German, Hungarian right on our little block,” he said. “We were surrounded by all of these different voices speaking various different tongues.”
Along with a handful of neighbourhood boys, Murphy-Dodds would play and get into mischief all over the area. The gang played hockey and had snowball fights in the winter, and hucked rocks and played other games in the summer.
“We were out there playing cops and robbers, building forts in the bush and getting stuck in the muskeg,” said Murphy-Dodds. “There was this tremendous independence and self-direction and freedom. It was great.”
As he got older, Murphy-Dodds became interested in telling stories and making presentations. During his teenage years, he would go up to the CFAR radio station – at that time headquartered uptown – and nag the workers into letting him on the air.
This didn’t exactly endear him to station manager Buck Whitney.
“I think he wanted to kill me on more than one occasion, because I just irritated him,” said Murphy-Dodds. “I used to say,
‘Mr. Whitney, will you hire me? I’ll do it for nothing.’”
Eventually Murphy-Dodds wore down Whitney’s resolve and became a host at CFAR.
The radio gig began a storytelling odyssey that would take him across western Canada in a variety of jobs. He worked as an on-air host, producer and manager in radio before making the jump to television. He worked as a host on CKX-TV in Brandon, and also worked in programming and production.
After a few years, Murphy-Dodds left to become the marketing manager for the Manitoba Exhibition in Winnipeg. The job included organizing events such as rodeos and horse and livestock shows.
Having grown up far away from the farmers’ fields and ranches of the south, he left some people scratching their heads.
“Somebody said to me, ‘What experience do you have with livestock?’” Murphy-Dodds recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t have any.’ They said, ‘Then how can you manage a show?’ I said, ‘Well, how can I drive a car? I’ve never made one.’”
Murphy-Dodds took on a similar job with the Saskatoon Exhibition before leaving due to health concerns.
Once he recovered, he turned over a new leaf. He started a new life as a life skills coach and started his own business based on several keynote speeches and workshops he designed and wrote himself.
As if his resume wasn’t already impressive enough, not long afterward Murphy-Dodds took to the stage as a story performer for the first time. He got a kick out of telling stories on stage and continues to perform to this day.
Murphy-Dodds joined Storytellers of Canada, which represents those in the profession, but over time grew disillusioned.
“I was telling other people’s stories, the mythological tales and all that, which is fine, but it was very limiting,” he said. “I had so much in my own creative ability that I wanted to go and present.”
Since first taking to the stage, Murphy-Dodds has performed across western Canada, including the Regina Fringe Festival. He’s written several stories regarding notable figures and events in Canadian history, including the Regina riot, Grey Owl and the Regina Cyclone.
Murphy-Dodds has performed a show of stories based on Canadian soldiers in the First World War called Tommy Goes To War. The show toured at Legions throughout Saskatchewan and at the Regina Fringe Festival.
Murphy-Dodds frequently visits his hometown and shares stories of Flin Flon’s history in his shows.
At this point he doesn’t tour much with his material, citing his age.
“I would if I was 25. I’ve been on the road, I know what it’s like and it’s bloody hard work,” said Murphy-Dodds. “I’m not there for that, but I do enough of it to make it worthwhile.”
Murphy-Dodds makes a distinction between story performing and storytelling. For him, story performing is a more in-depth process than simple storytelling.
“I wrote, created, produced and perform all of my own work,” he said. “Storytelling is essentially doing other people’s stories, but this is all my stuff.”
Today Murphy-Dodds lives in Regina and works as a professional story performer and playwright. For more than a decade he has volunteered as host of a weekly radio show on Regina’s public radio station, CJTR.
While the radio bug hasn’t left Murphy-Dodds, he feels that live storytelling creates a relationship between the speaker and the audience that radio lacks.
“I think it’s more rewarding because there’s the immediate contact with the audience,” he said.
“I was told and I believe that when you’re doing radio, you’re only speaking to one person. You can’t speak to the thousands of people you hope are listening. The only kind of feedback you ever get is if you’re out in public and hear someone say, ‘I heard you on the radio.’ You’re on the edge of a cliff when you walk out on stage.”
