Into, playing at Tarragon Theatre Mainspace as part of the 2016 Toronto Fringe Festival Festival was a hit at Fringe twenty years ago. My bet is that it’s going to be a hit this year too. It’s still fresh and funny, the best kind of dystopian comedy. I loved Dave Carley’s script. I admire someone who can imagine nuns skinny dipping and a traffic jam that lasts for months. Continue reading Into (Theatre Gridlock) 2016 Toronto Fringe Review
Shakespeare BASH’d has had a very good run at the Toronto Fringe Festival. Their yearly shows, 90 minutes of pared-down Shakespeare set in the upstairs room at the Victory Cafe, lend themselves to a convivial (and drink-friendly) atmosphere, and tend to sell out quickly. This year’s The Comedy of Errors is the company’s Fringe swan song; as the Bard himself said, parting is such sweet sorrow.
Continue reading The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare BASH’d) 2016 Toronto Fringe Review
If, like me, you are craving a good police drama right now and are counting the seconds until the new series of Broadchurch and Happy Valley are released, Vagrant and Bad Dog Theatre Company’s True Blue, playing as part of the Toronto Fringe Festival, could not come at a better time. And the good news is that it is improvised, so you can watch a whole British series of it (that’s six episodes) and each show will be different. Continue reading True Blue (A Vagrant Theatre and Bad Dog Theatre Company) 2016 Toronto Theatre Fringe Review
I’m not usually a patron of contemporary dance, but I might have been converted by (un)boxed a performance from Jay9 Dance Projects at the Toronto Fringe Festival. It made such great use of the space available, lighting, music and of course performance. It played like a Disney animated short except it was real life.
Continue reading (un)boxed (Jay9 Dance Projects) 2016 Toronto Fringe Review
Canadian Comedy Award-winning duo and Fringe mainstays Peter N’ Chris would like you to know that they have been doing comedy together for ten years – or maybe eight. In their latest Toronto Fringe Festival offering, Peter Vs Chris, they intend to go mano a mano for the last time, and only one will be left standing on the Tarragon Theatre Mainspace stage (this is, in some ways, a literal statement: there is a lot of falling down). As is befitting a Peter N’ Chris show, this may or may not be true, but part of the duo’s delight comes from the way they are always able to keep the audience just slightly off-balance.
Continue reading Peter Vs Chris (Peter N’ Chris) 2016 Toronto Fringe Review