JUST JOKING — James Donald Forbes McCann tested some of his new comedy material at Chesterton and Co. Cigars in Steubenville Feb. 10. -- Christopher Dacanay

STEUBENVILLE — Nowadays, it’s relatively rare that someone from outside the U.S. settles down in the Ohio Valley. So, when James Donald Forbes McCann moved to Steubenville from Australia, it understandably left some people perplexed.

“I don’t know if anybody from overseas has ever moved to Ohio,” McCann said, “because everybody in the BMV was very welcoming and very lovely but also very confused as to what to do with me.”

McCann is a stand-up comedian from Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, one of the country’s six states. McCann’s off-kilter, irreverent comedy style earned him a review in the Australian publication Weekend Notes in 2021, in which the writer called his performance “endearingly manic, high-octane (and) comically schizoid.”

McCann has been a repeated performer at the Adelaide Fringe, billed as the largest annual arts festival in the Southern Hemisphere. With 13 consecutive runs at Fringe, McCann has earned multiple awards from the festival, including Adelaide Comedy’s Comedian of the Year and Best Emerging Comedy: Adelaide Fringe.

According to his website, McCann has several side hustles — everything from TV writer and poet to rapper and self-help guru. In the poet role, McCann has published two anthologies, entitled, “My Monkey and I Have Something to Hide: Unpleasant Poems with Limited Appeal” and “Marlon Brando 9/11: Beautiful Poems That Everybody Will Love.”

McCann, who was born and raised in Adelaide, began taking comedy seriously around the age of 17.

“I was a very sad child,” he recalled. “Whatever it was about comedy — some might find music or drawing — comedy lit up that part of my brain, and I never really wanted to do anything else.”

He’s been in the comedy scene for about 15 years, traveling frequently and performing at Australian comedy clubs.

“(Australia) only has five cities,” McCann said. “Once you’ve gotten to all five, you do have to wait to go to all of them again.”

Although he’s been a staple at Fringe, this is the first year McCann won’t be making an appearance, now that he’s found his new home in downtown Steubenville, a city he greatly appreciates as “a wonderful place to have a family.”

McCann’s expatriation began with financial difficulties in Australia, where he said the price of rent is “profoundly bad” and “worse than anything in America.” McCann started to think a change was in order after battling against rent, having multiple children to feed, awaiting a big break in his career and stopping smoking because of high cigarette prices.

As the “panic and doom” of his financial situation loomed, McCann spoke with his wife, and the two prayed about what to do.

At the time, McCann and his wife both consumed content from New Polity, a Steubenville-based Christian magazine and podcast publisher.

Around 2022, McCann was planning a brief trip to the U.S. Knowing he’d be in the states, McCann reached out to Marc Barnes, editor of New Polity Magazine, and expressed interest in coming to see Steubenville. McCann said Barnes was accommodating, showing him all of the “incredible” revitalization projects in the city.

“There’s something really exciting happening there,” McCann recalled thinking.

After the visit, McCann and his wife decided coming to Steubenville was the right move for his children’s “spiritual development.” Now here on a visa, McCann said the transfer process has been a “convoluted” matter, but it’s been well worth the effort.

“This is a glorious, shining land of opportunity,” McCann said of the U.S.

Although locals may take it for granted, McCann said he loves the many unique qualities of Steubenville and the Ohio Valley, from the murals and historic architecture to the Fort Steuben Mall potholes.

“I love the enormous skeleton statue (displayed on North Fourth Street),” McCann said. “It was dressed for Valentine’s Day. I wonder what it’ll be dressed for next.”

McCann added, “I was introduced here by the smartest, most interesting and good people that I’ve ever met. I’m thrilled by the things they’re doing. Steubenville is spoken of like Mecca by people — even folks in Australia … are trying to get there. And, of course, not everyone should move there, but the young Catholic community is inspired by the things happening there to make their own towns better.”

Since moving, McCann said, he’s found a “warm and welcoming community” where “suburban atomization is really being fought against” through intentional, family-centered community. McCann himself has three children, all of them under 4 years old and each having been born in Australia.

The next steps are a work in progress for McCann, regarding his comedy career. In addition to a previous comedy material test run at Chesterton and Co. Cigars on Feb. 5, which drew attendees from as far as Columbus, McCann has other U.S. gigs lined up. Since the move, he’s performed in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Austin and Nashville. He was in New York City for a gig and a brief family vacation and had a similar trip lined up for Orlando.

As per his visa, McCann is focusing solely on comedy work to support his family and, hopefully, purchase a boat by any means necessary.

“That’s the stability that (I) will thrive in: Putting my family on the sea,” McCann said.

Fringe is still in McCann’s heart, and he hopes to return one day, once the chaos of his life has settled down, he said. For now, he’s content with how “receptive, open and warm” American audiences are.

“I love America, I’m sticking very closely to my visa and God bless you,” McCann said, signing off from New York City.