Aline and I took advantage of my mum visiting last week and our good friend Lorraine this week to leave Hazel in trustowrthy hands and check out a few Fringe Festival shows. The verdict:
1) The Churchill Protocol – Apparently the Canadian militry is flying Afghan terrorists into northern Manitoba for interogations – or so believes a newspaper reporter. Gruppo Rubato’s Kris Joseph tries to convince him (and the audience) that in reality the military is developing new weapons to shake him off the trail – weapons like a gun that makes you want to go to the bathroom – eventually.
2) Life, Love and the pursuit of Harlequin – It’s hard to parody bad pun Harlequin romance for 40 minutes but it can be done. Well-worded!
3) Sandra Goodwife’s Big Day – Newly engaged cook imagines revisiting all the lovers who scorned her in the past to give them their just desserts. Think Betty Crocker with a machine gun in a violin case. Well done.
4) Loungezilla – Gay cabaret sums it up nicely. Well done.
5) Jem Rolls Up – Spoken word poetry. Jem came by and introduced himself to us as we were waiting for another show earlier in the week so we thought we’d take a chance. He said if we liked the show we should tell our friends and if we didn’t we should lie. Well, we don’t want to lie and we didn’t like his rapid fire stacato verse or delivery. Sorry.
6) Bye Bye Bombay – We were hoping for Bollywood live. We got bored teenager heads off to India on a whim. Good delivery but not what we wanted.
