Monologues for Nobody, currently playing inside the Fringe Club at the Toronto Fringe Festival, is exactly as advertised: Participants have five minutes to perform a monologue of their choosing in the shed. Alone. As creator Jordan Mechano puts it in his description, “Like singing alone in the shower…No audience, no cameras, no pressure. Just play.” While it really was as simple as that, I didn’t expect to be so moved by the experience.
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.
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.
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 