Jackson Free Press

Donovan Childress sits relaxed across the table, scratching his beard and looking ahead with an expression that regularly breaks into a wide, affable smile.

As the newest co-host at Hal & Mal's Pub Quiz ever Tuesday with the incomparable bartender Laura Collins, Childress plays the straight man to Collins' boundless energy. He keeps the six-round trivia game where teams compete for the right answers for questions that range from pop culture to history entertaining.

Childress' ascension to second seat was serendipitous. "Laura said to me: 'You're hilarious, and I'm looking for someone to do Pub Quiz,'" Childress says. "So I climbed over the bar and hugged her, because I felt like I could do that. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone."

Collins had seen Childress perform with his improv group, best known as Totally Improv (the group's name changes depending on the crowd). She understood his humor and was impressed enough to offer him the position as her co-host.

All hasn't gone smoothly, though.

"The first week I show up, and I'm like, 'Hey, where is the big bank of questions to draw from?'" Childress says. So (Collins) asks me, 'You didn't write any questions?'"

He looks around with a sheepish glance, his eyebrows raised slightly before whispering with his hand cupped to his face: "I didn't know I was supposed to."

The Memphis, Tenn., native sprang into action and "whipped up" a batch of music questions at the bar an hour before the show. Now he comes up with 30 questions each week for the quiz, and he says he is constantly taking notes on his iPhone during conversations or any time inspiration strikes.

Childress, 30, says he enjoys his new job as the co-host and wishes participants would all come regularly: "We try to be funny at Pub Quiz. We try to make people want to come back. I'd love to see a consistent attendance."

Childress moved to Ripley, Miss., when he was a teenager and earned his bachelor's degree in elementary education from Mississippi State University in 2004. In 2008, he moved to Denver where he worked in a camera store. A friend bought him a notebook and suggested he start writing down his humorous musings and possibly perform them on stage one day. But it wasn't until friends in Jackson convinced him to move to the city last year that Childress started performing improv comedy.

"Everyone was extremely positive when talking about Jackson. You don't get that very often with a place you've never gone," Childress says.

Childress will soon be busy serving the throng of revelers at Jackson's preeminent extravaganza, the Mal's St. Paddy's Parade street party at Hal & Mal's where he also bartends. "As long as Hal & Mal's stays in business forever, I'll be good," he says.