Bad Habits

A Little Bit Off—West End Cultural Centre

The Portland duo who have been at the Winnipeg Fringe before, with “Beau and Aero” and “Bella Culpa”, bring a new comedy show about nuns. It is hilarious due to the physical comedy, the interplay between the characters and how they constantly break the 4th wall to engage the audience and make light of the script absurdities and the nuts and bolts of doing a live show.

Those of you who are familiar with them will know that they are gifted acrobats. They do not disappoint, ramping up the difficulty by doing some very difficult balancing while on hoverboards. Flying nuns indeed. It really is a lot of fun.

WECC has a Fringe Special of $5 adult beverages, for those who might not be so pious.

Murray Hunter

Old Dyke Tales

Howl Theatre—Red River College – Roblin Centre

As a queer woman myself a show entirely about lesbians can be disgusting, or enlightening. This was more than enlightening, it was funny, touching, and real. It is so important today in the young queer community to remember how far we’ve come, even in these last few decades, and that’s exactly what this show does. It’s the people like Maeve, the focus of the show, who allowed kids to be (more) open than she was. We are taken through her life in a series of monologues, scenes, and poetry so beautifully woven together that I barely had time to settle before moving on to the next scene. While sometimes it was a little difficult to tell when she switched characters, it was relatively easy to follow. Call me biased, but this is nothing less than a must see, especially for today’s gay youth.

Arden Pruden

Big in Sudan: The (Mis)adventures of a Vagabond Musician

Melanie Gall Presents—Creative Manitoba

My first encounter with Melanie Gall occurred at Fringe 2016 where her commanding voice immediately handcuffed my attention. I’ve seen hundreds (if not thousands) of Fringe performances and Gall has one of the greatest singing voices among all of them. Trained as an opera singer (she has five musical degrees!), Gall’s voice transcends much more than operatic arias.

In her past shows, Gall highlighted famous singers with a journey through their bios. This year, Gall decided to highlight her own journeys as she has toured the world many times over, traversing 58 countries in the meantime.

As an accomplished story-teller as well as professional singer, Gall engagingly takes us on some of her adventures through foreign lands, highlighting some escapades in song. I’m used to seeing Gall adapt song-after-song effortlessly as she entrances you into the moment. Today, I sense that she’s taking on some songs that are a bit out of her normal comfort level, which is great. That doesn’t take anything away from another tremendous performance, despite some audio difficulties. As a last minute addition, the show includes some travel photos, which really help bring the viewer into the moment.

Exceeding my expectations again, Gall delivers another performance that I will remember as one of my favourites of Fringe—bravo!

The main entrance requires you to climb 75 steps up four floors—don’t let that stop you from seeing the show though. If you have mobility problems, the kind folks at Creative Manitoba are happy to lead you to their elevator.

Ray Yuen

Taking Heat

Liquid Desert Productions—MTC Up the Alley

Tim Lee is at heart a California surfer, and his quest for the perfect wave has taken him to many far flung locations around the world. He is also a scientist and stand up comedian and uses these skills in his show to try and raise awareness about climate change and other man-made ecological disasters. He shows a number of slides that show how some previously pristine areas are now mostly dead wastelands due to human greed for short term gains over long term costs. His comedy includes a number of “groaners” but his personability keeps the audience with him.

Overall an interesting show, the only criticism I have is that the projected graphs and slides were a little hard to see due the stage lighting washing out some of the screen.

Murray Hunter

Cubicle Jockeys

8Box—The Cinematheque

As a former call centre employee I was curious. As an audience member I was disappointed. Never before have I walked into a show and seen the performers going through technical cues 20 minutes before it was set to start. There were attempts at humor from what could easily have been a one man show, but in all honesty the funniest parts were from a volunteer in the back playing a couple extra roles over a mic. Despite the frequent slogs through uninteresting and sometimes even tedious dialogue, the play still fell nearly 20 minutes short of its 75 minute time slot, which was perhaps a blessing. Our leading man spent more than enough times trying to signal the technicians to increase the volume of recordings, which again I have never seen. Perhaps they missed the tech, perhaps there was an unforseen conflict, and if so I sympathize, but the quality of this show (or lack there of) was unacceptable.

Arden Pruden

Game On

Gearshifting Performance Works—Tom Hendry Warehouse

Echoes through the audience reflect words like “fantastic,” “marvelous,” and “spectacular.” Maybe it is and I don’t get it. I have several degrees, but none of them are in Fine Arts—maybe if I did, I would get it.

They pose a couple of causes where they hold my hand and say, “here, this is what we’re talking about,” and I got it. The rest? I’m not sure—but that’s okay! The dancing and the athleticism make for a visually powerful performance that’s worth the price of admission by itself.

Surprisingly, a lot of people brought their kids along and I definitely do not see this as a kids’ show. I hear some youngster rustling but largely, the kids seem to enjoy it almost as much as the adults.

Ray Yuen

Burns & Allen – A Loving Tribute

The Probable Cast—Onstage at Pantages

The great comedy duo of George Burns and Gracie Allen are brought back to life by Stephen Sim and Caity Curtis who share the chemistry of the vaudeville/radio/tv pair. It is great to see how the comedy from that era still holds up today. The duo also update a few bits and then perform an improv version of a TV episode based on suggestions from the audience. You can tell Stephen’s banter with the crowd in soliciting the suggestions from the audience plays on his long experience with improv troupe CRUMBs. Caity also adds some lovely humerous numbers on the ukelele.

For those that saw the show last year, they do re-use a couple of the best bits from last year, but I enjoyed seeing their updated take on Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on first” routine and the “Pick a card” bit again as they are both so well done.

Murray Hunter

Nashville Hurricane

Chase Padgett (2)—PTE – Mainstage

I don’t care if this is a reprisal from last year’s Fringe. Major heart concerns prevented our friend Chase from from bringing us the brand new production he wanted to. I can’t get enough of this man, and Winnipeg obviously feels the same. You’d better get your tickets early as this Portland native tends to sell out. He is a master on two fronts, something rare to find. You can have the musician who can play his heart out; but can’t attempt a line. And the actor who can perform but has no musical talent. How lucky we are to have someone who has mastered every style of music, and can mesmerize an audience with his storytelling? He also takes time to interact with the audience, which adds a warm and different atmosphere for a part of the show. He also ad libs very cleverly and with a sharp sense of humor. I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t thouroughly enjoy this.

This is a fascinating tale of a child prodigies journey from what he is forced to do moving toward what he wants to do. Along the way you meet a cast of interesting characters; from the trailer park trash mom who gave birth to this idiot savant, to a villainous manager and a kindhearted, drunk of a blues musician who takes this young man under his wing.

Many people go up to him after his shows (Chase is also doing 6 Guitars in this venue) to ask to buy a recording of his incredible talent. The answer was, not available. But don’t despair, you can sign up for a mailing list and be the first to be notified of its release post September. Please don’t miss this. In fact, the whole set of 3 PTE theatres are packed with winners, so just stay all day and night in this comfy, AC’d location and pick off some great performers.

Lisa Campbell

Flute Loops

Devon More Music—Onstage at Pantages

What a cute, quaint and delightful show! If you didn’t know better, you would think that this is a musician sitting at home in a basement studio mixing together tracks to crank out a tune. With an elegance of ease, More shows us how easy it is to put together a catchy tune—well if you’re talented like her. If you’re like me, you’ll have a cacophony of ill-conceived noises. Every song plays nicely pitched with the topic, backed by a toe-tapping rhythm.

About the topic, I took intro to physics 30 years ago. I’ve forgotten a lot more than I learned (including the construction of E=MC2) but I do remember the fundamentals. What More delivers to you in a quasi-music backed lecture employs actual and accurate depictions of physics fundamentals (don’t let that scare you off!). Either More has some actual physics background or she did some good research before putting together this program. Either way, the outcome is wonderful.

As the lecture progresses, it turns away from academia into a world of introspection and finally contemplation. As with theoretical physics, we just don’t have all the answers. Or do we? If I end up seeing More’s show again tomorrow, I’ll know! Or is that today?

Ray Yuen

Drops in a Broken Fountain

Geodesic Productions—Tom Hendry Warehouse

To say it was a touch stilted would be an understatement. Dialogue was forced and often the delivery of it didn’t help, and while it perhaps was intentional the intention didn’t help. I wasn’t taken in, and it felt to me something that missed a workshop before production. There were long stretches of silence that not only broke the flow of the show, but slowed it down. One song was used throughout the entire show, which generally I wouldn’t have an issue with, however in this case it was clearly a stock ominous music track, and it got tedious very quickly. In light of all this, it was fine, the message is there, but needs work.

Arden Pruden