I enjoyed The Intrepid Project, which is playing at the BYOV Intrepid Travel. Certainly not high-brow, and not perfect, but pretty darn funny.
To give you an idea of the type of show it is, my favourite part was a man clad in silver spandex shorts compulsively dancing whenever music was played. The others dancing were fun too, but mr. silverpants, he was my favourite. Time travel and silver spandex pants, what’s not to like?
If you’ve ever been to a timeshare / travel club presentation you’ll recognize this format. It came complete with a real ‘If you book in the next 5 days you’ll get a discount’ offer from Intrepid Travel (the real one that offers trips in the present…)
One unfortunate thing is there was a bit where I’m pretty sure they were looking for some actual audience participation, but a Fringe audience is different than an improv audience. We’re been so trained in Canadian theatre to sit quietly in our seats, that when audience participation is requested we assume they don’t *really* want us to talk. So, it would have been good to have set that up a bit more so that people knew they could ask questions.
A technical quibble, when not using the projector a little desk calendar thingy was put in front of it to make the screen dark. The problem is that the calendar thing is glossy and white, so it it was very bright and reflected back kind of painfully, and certainly distractingly, into the audience. This can be quickly solved by just sticking a piece of black construction paper on the calendar I think, so I can’t imagine it will hold them back much.
But really, those were my only two quibbles. Being greeted by people protesting time-travel is a nice touch. Lets you know you should be prepared for goofy.
For some reason, one of my favourite lines “What time is it Mr. Wolf?” didn’t get a lot of laughs, but then other bits which I was pretty meh on got huge laughs. I guess it just tells you that it has parts that appeal to different senses of humour.
If you like the sometimes goofy humour of improv, this will tickle your fancy. A goodly amount of talent, mixed with a goodly amount of humour, and a goodly amount of people in the audience makes for a good experience.
Details
Cast: Ensemble
Audience: General Audience
Warning: course language, mature content
45 min.
Venue 17: Intrepid Travel
Wed, July 1 8:00 PM
Thu, July 2 9:00 PM
Fri, July 3 7:00 PM
Sat, July 4 6:00 PM
Mon, July 6 8:00 PM
Tue, July 7 8:00 PM
Wed, July 8 8:00 PM
Thu, July 9 9:00 PM
Fri, July 10 8:00 PM
Sat, July 11 6:00 PM
– All individual Fringe tickets are $10 at the door (cash only), or with interac and credit at the advance ticket box office at the Fringe Club (292 Brunswick Ave)
– Advance tickets are available by phone (416-966-1062) or at www.fringetoronto.com, there is a $2 service charge for these
– Several money-saving passes are available if you plan to see at least 5 shows