Arguably the greatest challenge faced by a festival with as strict a mandate as The Shaw Festival’s “plays by Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries, and plays about the period of Shaw’s lifetime” is the issue of relevance, or perhaps freshness is a more accurate word for the issue since I honestly believe you can find […]
Mirvish Productions has been on a run of great programming for the last little while with Come From Away’s Canadian sit-down production as a quality anchor, and tours of The Phantom of the Opera and Wicked coming through town. Phantom certainly can take some criticism but I’d argue its messages about empathy and mercy ultimately […]
Rory Mullarkey’s new play is totally bonkers, and while it does have some laugh-out loud moments, there are too many misfires meaning it ends up plodding along and becomes quite a frustrating watch. Unapologetically, this is a play deeply rooted in the surreal comedy genre, and it seems likely that it is going to split […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Tears of a Bullet (A-) You don’t have to know anything about sci-fi writer Thomas Disch who inspired the subject matter, to appreciate this strongly written play by Josh Downing, effectively directed by Jeff Kennes. The feat of this show is the convincing delivery […]
Recent times have taught us that the novel ‘dark romantic comedy’ genre can work in popular culture. Tim Burton even created such a style that is now synonymous with his namesake. Corpse Bride, for example, shows that the motif can succeed in straddling the line between the macabre and the touching without falling too far onto one side or the other. It Happened […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews The Awkward Hug (A) This is a play that uses all the technical aspects of theatre that I love. It’s a monologue (check) that breaks the fourth wall (check) that skews timelines with tangents (check) that uses self-deprecating humour but not too much (check) […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews The Last Party (A-) Steven Gallagher adapted this musical (with help from composer Nicky Phillips) from his own play Memorial, which I fell in love with when it opened the As Written reading festival we helped produce back in 2015. A tender three-hander about […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Josephine, A Burlesque Cabaret Dream Play (A+) POC can, should, and will tell their stories. I am thrilled they do because I get to learn about fabulous people like Josephine Baker. Tymisha Harris sings and dances her way through the stories that explain how […]