Review: Terminal

I caught Terminal today, a dark comedy about a guy who wants to get himself killed by a hooker. Story of my life!
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Review: Red Bastard

The Red Bastard is pretty freakin’ creepy. This was my introduction to bouffon, and yes, Red Bastard is mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for buffon.

While the show featured a lot of physical comedy and political satire, above all Red Bastard intimidates the audience, invades their personal space, subjects them to gross and unpleasant challenges, and puts everyone on notice that they might be next. Some will find this absolutely thrilling, and others squirm-inducing. Your call!
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Review: Antoine Feval

Antoine Feval is a one-man play. Chris Gibbs, the actor, is charming and very funny. The show is worth seeing just for the constant tangents on which he goes off: reacting to peculiar audience laughter, audience toilet trips, late arrivals, early departures. I have been lucky to see many good shows at the Fringe, and this is one of my favourites.

Highly recommended!

Review: Dance Animal

Dance Animal is a big-time feel-good show. I laughed out loud; I don’t do that much. I was impressed that all the monologues were good, not just those crafted by the comedians in the group. The stories, the dances, it was all good and all fun. No single dancer dominated the show. Marc Rowland’s shoulders and biceps look really big when he wears a leotard.

Very Recommended!
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Review: Uncalled For Presents: Today is all Your Birthdays

I very much enjoyed Uncalled For’s latest show, Today is all Your Birthdays, an outing that has the look and feel of a longform improv show rather than a sketch show. They deftly wrap their absurdism in themes that run throughout the show, thus indulging their love for the absurd without letting the performance become so. It’s well written, well performed, and a real hoot.

Very recommended!
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Fringe Karaoke!

Facebook Event

Do you like to sing? Do you like to watch people sing? Do you like to sip beer and sing or sip beer and watch people sing? Do you like to dance and sip beer and have fun and laugh and meet all your old friends and catch up and have one of those amazing, dazzling, feel-good nights and sing? Do you like to dance and sip beer and have fun and laugh and meet all your old friends and catch up and have one of those amazing, dazzling, feel-good nights and watch people sing?

Well this Friday night is for you.

A KARAOKE PARTY at Club Lambi.

$5

Stay as long as you like, sing as much as you like, have fun have fun have fun. Bring your friends.
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Review: How to Get Your Foot in the Door Without Losing it

The one-man powerpoint presentation has become a fixture on the Fringe circuit. This show features Derick Lengwenus, a very committed performer in a role and script that has good moments, but overall just doesn’t have that much meat to it. Unlike his last show, Press Conference with George Bush, where he was able to improvise marvelous answers to audience questions by drawing from a wealth of knowledge on his subject, the give-and-take on the topic of zombies in this show was less meaningful. Still, a nice way to spend 45 minutes.

Review: Dracula in a Time of Climate Change

Dracula and his sidekick Renfield steal the show in Dracula in a Time of Climate Change, a comedic play that skewers the vampire genre along with environmentalism, veganism and many other stuff white people like. It is playful and unpretentious, but clocks in at 90 minutes which is about 30 minutes too long. Music & multimedia add nice depth to a show that, thanks to Dracula’s dry wit and unfaltering accent and Renfield’s mugging and physical comedy, is funny and enjoyable. Much involving the humans and the story arc surrounding them could be cut.

Review: The Accident

Jonno Katz returns to the Montreal Fringe with The Accident, a one-man show which is at times funny, charming and intense. Katz slips in and out of dance and dialogue, weaving the very interesting tale of two brothers with very different personalities. The story is engrossing and Katz’ movements hypnotic. The comedy comes at all the right times.

At one point, there is an intense scene with 3 people in the room. Katz switches between 2 of the characters, back and forth, back and forth, with all the tension being generated by the third person’s unrevealed reaction. It was quite cool.

Spoiler alert: Had Katz heard about this, I wonder? Life imitates art, or vice versa?

Recommended!

IMPROV JAM

Yesterday, both Sean and myself performed in the Fringe’s Improv Jam in the beer tent. This was a bilingual show with improvisers from Uncalled For, Just Us and Les Néos. Overall, I’d say it was a success, particularly since most of us had never improvised in anything other language than our mother tongues.

The highlights from the series of non-related scenes would have to be the haunted forest that Sean had to escape from by singing a French ballad with Dan from Uncalled For, lifeguard training that only taught how to give mouth to mouth, a zoo with some very randy monkeys, and about 5 or 6 scenes about Quebec life that involved pot, potatoes and the usual colloquialisms. Nothing says Quebec like a rude fry vendor swearing at you before the SQ arrests and molests you.

Quick & Cheap Eats Around the Fringe Festival

It’s the Fringe, and you have 30 minutes to eat between shows. Where do you grab a fast bite? Refer to this map, created specially for our out-of-town and out-of-Plateau readers, for ideas on quick & cheap eats around the Fringe Festival site. Bon appétit!

Mirror’ed

Yes!.