FRINGE REVIEW: Mac Attack bombs
Imagine going to McDonald’s, ordering a Big Mac and being given a Filet o’ Fish. Any reasonable response would be to say “Yuck, I didn’t order this” and hand it back. No such luxury is afforded audience members at Fringe plays that turn out to be something completely different than advertised. You just have to […]
Eight rules to Fringe by
You think by now people would be hip to the “turn off your cellphone” rule at the Fringe, but apparently there are holdovers. Here’s a thought: make your ringtone a big wet fart. It will be offensive when it goes off, so you might as well get a laugh out of it. Just trying to […]
Zombie Apocalypse at the Fringe!
They may have plopped a James Bond theme onto this year’s Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival – running Aug. 15-25 – but given the number of plays about zombies or death or the End of the World or all of the above, we’re sensing a theme here. Such a vast gathering of theatrical doom and […]
The Full Mountie revives Klondike at Fort Edmonton
All days are Klondike Days at Fort Edmonton Park – and so it’s a natural that the first idea the new artistic director Dana Andersen came up with would be an improvised Klondike melodrama. Pity it comes AFTER Klondike Days is over. The Full Mountie, playing Aug. 1-3 at the Capitol Theatre and performed by […]
STREET FEST: Anyone can learn to juggle
One ball is easy. Two balls are no problem to handle. Three balls is a trick. Of course we’re talking about juggling. An Edmonton high school phys-ed teacher used fail any student who didn’t learn to juggle three balls – so now there are likely hundreds of locals who have mastered this basic street performers’ […]
FLOOD RELIEF: Albertans band together in adversity
The Calgary-Edmonton rivalry seems awfully silly – sillier than it already is, that is – in light of the devastating floods that swamped our sister city to the South. Sure, she may be a bit more of a looker, a bit more successful, better dressed and have a better head for business, and frankly we […]
Friendly fairies frolic in fantastical Freewill festival
It weren’t for Shakespeare, Disney would look a lot different today. No Tinkerbell! Before the great playwright first produced A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1660, fairies were evil. They put death spells on people, stole their babies, spread disease, imparted loose morals upon comely maidens. In general, fairies were unpleasant manifestations of the public fear […]
Mark Meer tops list of Canadian Comedy Awards nominations
With so many Canadians being funny in America, that must make Canada the funniest country in the world, and with so many Edmontonians being funny across Canada, that must make Edmonton the funniest city in the world. Ha-ha funny, not “funny” funny. Proof is in the pudding, whatever that means, as the nominations for the […]
PRIDE: The Picture of Happiness more than just a gay story
“The Picture of Happiness” wasn’t initially meant to be part of the Edmonton Pride Festival. The play is “much bigger than gay story,” says its piano player and collaborator Patti Loach, who will accompany Toronto actor Brad Hampton in his personal one-man musical. “It’s a story about a grandson’s intention to honour his grandfather, to […]
THEATRE: Parts fit the actors in new Lemoine
There are many ways we can try to describe rebel playwright Stewart Lemoine – as a modern Noel Coward, for his witty dialogue; or as Edmonton’s theatrical Christopher Guest, for using almost the same set of actors again and again in one quirky comedy after another. Occasionally, a new actor is invited into the fold. […]
Big top goes up as Cirque du Soleil takes over Edmonton
Local media were recently given a sneak peek of an amazing demonstration of strength, grace and agility as more than 80 people gave their all in the service of the popular human circus Cirque du Soleil – and that was just the construction crew raising the big top at Northlands on Thursday. The actual show […]
Surviving punters assemble first and last Joe Bird album
If you believe in life after death, you could imagine Joe Bird in heaven laughing at his friends left to deal with all the recordings he made before he died suddenly in 2009 – music that was never released. His good friend Jason Kodie knows what he’d say: “I think Joe’s laughing. He’s pissing himself […]
