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[Victoria Fringe Festival ’15] The 11 o’clock Number Rocks, A Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

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VENUE: Metro Studio Theatre
1411 Quadra St. Victoria, BC

LENGTH: 60 minutes

To perform improv on stage must require the talents to think fast and furious. To see that person compose a song on the fly and be funny at the same time has to be commended. In what Grindstone Theatre has provided in their show 11 o’clock Number at the Victoria Fringe Festival 2015, which included input from me (who asked for zombies), I’m very impressed at blending the ideas of a neurosurgeon discovering a miracle in what some brain cells of her boss’ daughter can do and finding a cure to an emerging Zombie apocalypse in Victoria that would even impress Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti from CW’s iZombie. Every night promises to be different, and in what I enjoyed opening night is the comedy from Jordan Ward and Dan Moser when one of them played a gender-swapped role and the two were playing off each other with ease. They even kept the act clean. And to see them ham it up behind the singer made for a hilarious contrast.

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[Victoria Fringe Festival ’15] The Lexicon of the Brothers Grimm is Fully Explored in The Untold Tales, A Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

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VENUE: Metro Studio Theatre
1411 Quadra St. Victoria, BC

LENGTH: 75 minutes

Audiences going to see The Untold Tales of the Brothers Grimm will be treated to lesser known tales from the trio and to quick summarizes of their better known tales. But wait, not everyone will know that the family consisted of nine siblings. Jacob (Josh Sundmann) and Wilhelm (Nich Gulycz) are the duo who achieved wider recognition. Some members passed away before their prime and others were not as involved in these two’s endeavours. What makes this show fascinating is a look into how one of the members of the family really wanted to be part of Jacob and Wilhelm’s life. The mousey Ludwig Grimm (Brooke Baliam) adds an element to the show that helps provide a plot. On the historical front, and perhaps overlooked for this play, is his contribution to the Grimm legacy by providing an illustrative front-piece to a later edition of their book, Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

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[Victoria Fringe Festival 2015] A Look at the Many Faces of Tim Motley, Dirk Darrow & Beyond

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Location:
Victoria Event Centre
1415 Broad Street

Showtimes:
Aug 27, 2015 – 8:15 PM
Aug 29, 2015 – 8:15 PM
Sept 2, 2015 – 6:15 PM
Sept 4, 2015 – 10:00 PM
Sept 5, 2015 – 4:45 PM
Sept 6, 2015 – 6:30 PM

Stage Magician and Comedian Tim Motley has more than just one character hiding up his sleeve. He can simply be himself, or appear as a character from long ago. In the past, he’s played the role of Arizona Jones, a character that’s a cousin of the famous archaeologist, Indiana, but these days, he’s Dirk Darrow, a sleuth with an eye on enchanting audiences with his slight-of-hand and wit. He appeared two years ago at Victoria’s Fringe Festival back as a Not Completely Serious Supernatural Investigator in Dirk Darrow: NCSSI, and this year he returns with 2 Ruby Knockers, 1 Jaded Dick. If there’s a sexual joke in there, theatre-goers will have to attend the show to find out. At other Fringe shows, this show has been reported as sold out.

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[Victoria, BC] How to do the Nerdy Fringe 2015 Edition

Various Venues
August 27 to Sept 6
Victoria, BC

Requires Fringe Button ($6)
Tickets range from $9 to 11
Available through Ticket Rocket or at the door

I’m fairly certain that there’s more than a few staff members at the Victoria Fringe Festival who are nerds too. I’ve met one person who worked there who is an avid LEGO enthusiast and I’m sure that buried in the closet are a few NERF guns. When nobody is looking, it’ll be time to bust a move.

People not acquainted with what the Fringe is about will quickly discover that the shows are experimental in nature, and the stages used are small to accommodate an intimate performance. Anything can happen, and the idea of a festival is to give new up-and-coming talent a chance to earn their cred. There’s a few groups that have moved on to bigger shows. The Reduced Shakespeare Company got their start at Fringe and Tom Stoppard‘s play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was performed first at the Edinburgh Fringe. In a tiny way, Evil Dead: The Musical owes its debt somewhat to this method of putting on shows. It opened in a club before making it big. Musicals are just one part of what can be experienced at Fringe Festivals, and that’s what I tend to gravitate to when the Victoria Fringe Festival caps off the Summer.

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Follow the Rising Water known as Yakona, A Documentary

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

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Plays at Cinecenta
University of Victoria
Victoria, BC
Aug 11 7:00 & 9:15 pm

For other showtimes, please click here.

Not many documentaries can hold a viewer for more than 45 minutes. When one does, they are typically filled with narration to explain the purpose of why it is expanding an individual’s mind to the wonders of the planet Earth, or the universe. Sometimes, in a theatrical presentations like Yakona, the purpose is to captivate and let the viewer decide for themselves what the visual thesis is about. Through sound and image instead of narration (having this track would have been beneficial), a creation and apocalyptic myth are being forged about the San Marcos River (located in Central Texas) as it borne from springs in the aforementioned region to Spring Lake.

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The Wind up Geek’s 2015 SDCC Trailer Review

SDCCLogo By James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)

The San Diego Comic-Con has come and gone and what a blast it was! But I wouldn’t know that would I because I wasn’t there. Trying to get to SDCC is like winning the lottery, if you win the golden ticket you don’t get Wonka’s factory, you do get bragging rights to your friends for years to come. But keep in mind nobody likes a smart ass.

I was able to enjoy what SDCC had to offer from the comforts of my own home thanks to the companies, the media and the fans who were there. What truly interested me was the plethora of trailers made available to the con-goers and to the world in general. I could’ve wrote a book on what was seen but to avoid annoying the readers I have whittled it down to a handful of trailers, feature films only. Although The Walking Dead and Con Man looked really good, throwing them into the mix would’ve muddied the article. And Fantastic Four is not here because I couldn’t say enough good things about it. I’ve been through two previous incarnations of the FF and this latest outing appears to follow the same fate as its predecessors.

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