Matthew Harvey drops a truthbomb in his stand up poetry set, Matthew Harvey is…Dangerman!, “saying, ‘I don’t like poetry’ is like saying ‘I don’t like music,’” and he’s right.
Both mediums encompass a wide rage of styles and emotions. It would be unfair to denounce all of them in a blanket statement. And while Harvey put on a good show, the style of poetry that he was throwing down wasn’t something I was interested in picking up.
In his first return to the Fringe in eight years, Paul Matwychuk presents an autobiographical monologue filled with absurd content that contrast with his average-everyday-guy persona in a riotous, but pensive way. Mexican Blindness is a great trip.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a show where the actor openly admits that they’re the most important person in the room. It’s a fun vibe to sit through, and the condescending-to-funny ratio sits pretty comfortably in Bad Guys Finish First.
Who’s never had the urge to find out how an alzheimer afflicted patient solves a murder-mystery? That’s the foundation that Forget Me Not builds its narrative upon, and it’s a stupendously hilarious one-man performance that might leave you looking forward to the latest stages in your life – so much fun is it to watch a retired detective weave his way through the facts in front of him, and his own shoddy memory.
From the moment that a BDSM discount coupon slipped out of my program as I walked into the venue, I knew I was probably in for one of the most sexy shows at this years’ Fringe. I just wasn’t aware that I was about to see one of the best sexy shows I’ve seen at the festival in all my years.
Innocent When You Dream is a great example of a show trying to follow the fringe formula, but failing badly.
Zeb West, attempts to mash the tales of Moby Dick and Don Quixote into a single story that sees himself, and the novels’ protagonist trapped in the belly of a whale. West uses puppets, curses, and – admittedly interesting – props fashioned from the wreckage of ships to try and show audiences a good time, but his anachronistic jokes fall flat, and his puppetry and awkward audience participation lack substance. Innocent When You Dream is listed at 60 minutes, but I clocked it at 36.
A long 36 minutes that should be spent elsewhere.
There’s a healthy bit of confusion going on in Limbo, but If you’ve got an obsessive penchant for one-man monologues, it shouldn’t disappoint you too badly.
Andrew Bailey tells a story of his own coming of age while coping with various social anxiety issues often stemming from his religion, and at the same time he tries to deliver a humorous, yet serious explanation of the meaning of life. He purports to solve the philosophical question in the first minute of his monologue and then “unsolve” it for the next 59.
This premise is a fairly successful one, but depending on how you interpret his solution, you might feel that he either undersells the rest of the play, or too drastically diverges from his initial point.
Kevin Pennyfeather 