If you want to see The Howland Company‘s remount of 52 Pick-Up at Fraser Studios get your tickets right now. It sold out at Fringe this summer and this production is selling out too. With good reason, it’s a lovely play.
52 Pick-Up, by TJ Dawe and Rita Bozi, is the story of a relationship from the beginning to the end. It’s not a linear tale. Every performance is different. And it’s wonderful.
Sketch comedy has little leeway when it comes to success or failure. The absolute worst description for a comedy cabaret is boring. The Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival‘s Weird Science cabaret at The Comedy Bar fell into that trap.
Continue reading Review: Weird Science (Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival 2015)
Daniel MacIvor finishes his time as Playwright-in-Residence at Tarragon Theatre with the play Cake and Dirt, which had its world premier last night.
Given the description on the Tarragon Theatre website calling the piece “A darkly comic look at life in Toronto through a fractured family of privilege.” I was expecting laughs, dark uncomfortable laughs, but laughs nonetheless. Instead, while there were funny moments, mostly what was coming from the stage felt more like anger than humour to me.
Spring is finally in the air. This week the temperature finally crested above freezing, Toronto’s snowbanks are melting away and its winter-beaten citizens are slowly emerging from hibernation. After that utterly miserable winter we all deserve a good laugh so it’s the perfect time for The Second City to premiere its Spring Mainstage revue. Continue reading Review: How to Kill a Comedian (The Second City)
I caught a live taping of The Irrelevant Show at the Randolph Theatre as part of The Sketch Comedy Festival. Going in, I wasn’t familiar with the CBC Radio hit, but I was familiar with the live-taping set-up (having seen a taping of The Debaters last year). The focus is on sound, so there is very little in the way of physical antics.
Let me get this out of the way as soon as possible: I wasn’t a big fan of the content. With the exception of a couple of sketches, I found the writing very broad and a little too tried-and-true for my taste. Continue reading Review: The Irrelevant Show (Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival 2015)