Tag: Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival

When New Wave Your Behaviour Is Better Than Strangling It at the Victoria Fringe

Modifying your life isn’t too hard in this musical comedy where New Wave Your Behaviour shows how sonic therapy is benificial.

New Wave Your BehaviourHamilton7

Tor Lukasik-Foss is a performer who has issues, and when he transforms his feelings into an act simply titled New Wave Your Behaviour, I’m sure many people can relate. In this show, his character is having more than just your average mid-life crisis. In fact, he’s diagnosed with a Dissociative disorder.

It’s become troublesome enough where he’s been “discharged” from work until he can sort things out. The higher-ups are kind to keep him sort of on the payroll, and with more time at home, his family are somewhat liking having him around and hating it (when he has his episodes) at the same time.

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When Andrew Bailey’s Brain Machine is Operating at the Victoria Fringe Festival 2024, Not Everything is Meant to Compute!

…but when it does, this brilliant play about the life and times of the narrator against society, machine learning (hence the title Brain Machine) and Life(tm) does have meaning in that strange Monty Python type of way.

Andrew Bailey's Brain MachineAnyone not familiar with Andrew Bailey‘s work may find Brain Machine disjointed and seemingly randomly transitioning from one story to another. It’s like those monologues one sees on a late night talk show, where the host can talk about anything, and audiences will laugh. Although I stopped watching these types of shows when Arsenio Hall’s show went off the air, this spoken word comedy caught my attention because I liked the title.

As a result, I paid more attention to his thoughts on the growth of Silicon Valley. Although he lived nowhere near, the stuff he had to say about the development of ARPANET to distributed data in a network and eventually the Internet, makes up one third of the show.

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Jon Bennett’s Ameri-can’t at Victoria Fringe 2024 Is Heartfelt Than Just A Rant

Whichever spelling people want to use to describe Jon Bennett’s Ameri-can’t or simply American’t, this show is about the can do attitude this comedian eventually decided to follow than not to be the success that he is!

American't Promo Card2Hoots Productions

When Jon Bennett‘s latest Fringe show, Ameri-can’t, hints at a performance about what the United States of America is incapable of getting back in control, that’s because what’s revealed isn’t too far from the truth. The reports he shows regarding gun control and limiting its use are spot on. And there are aspects he loves, namely the people and how lively the arts scene is here.

Even in 2024, there’s no denying the impact of the pandemic is still lingering around, and while some talents struggled to get by, he’s turned his experience into one rip-roaring, hilarious show that’s not without a message. Anyone who has experienced suicidal thoughts during this time should seek help, and his openness about it is truly eye-opening.

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When Fern Flowers Bloom Only One Day of the Year, It’s Not Just at the Victoria Fringe Festival!

In order to appreciate The Lighter Touch Art Collective’s play, When Fern Flowers Bloom, this primer will serve as a guide and be a review on what’s beautiful about this tragic tale of love, loss and life.

When Fern Flowers Bloom Publicity StillThe Lighter Touch Art Collective

Audiences wanting to see When Fern Flowers Bloom is best advised to know some aspects of Latvia folklore to fully appreciate every element this play offers. Otherwise, the symbolic elements may seem foreign. After seeing this show at the Victoria Fringe Festival, I want to dive even deeper into the lore because I suspect this tale also explores why the seasons change.

Just how this story begins had me vibing with “Here Comes The Sun,” by The Beatles but by the finale, I was thinking “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” by CCR. When the knowledge that Death is one of the characters, what’s presented addresses the traditions and rituals leading to Summer Solstice. Every culture celebrates it differently. Here, Jāņis (Erik Karklins) is a living incarnation of this season, and when this lady of the night can deliver more than a smile to his face every day, I fear for him!

Although Nāve’s (Sarah Ivanco) innocent side is that of a beautiful young woman in search of the rare Fern flower, there is more to her than meets the eye.

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At the Victoria Fringe Festival 2024, The Wasteland Preachers Shows How Life Doesn’t Have to Be Like A Castle of Glass

The hope here is that Wasteland Preachers can turn their live show Castle of Glass to a proper album for all to listen to!

Castle of Glass Publicity StillWhen a lonely young man is wailing over lost opportunities, including a failed marriage, just what else can he (Jeremy James Sinclair) do? Sing, of course! Here, the band Wasteland Preachers has a concept album that really needs to be put on CD or Streaming. Castle of Glass is an appropriate title about how fragile life can be.

What works the best is that the music will speak to you. These tunes are more than reflections on his journey, but also explosive revelations. It’s like hearing a different version of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, without the Mother figure and Girlfriend as key antagonists. Well, technically, there’s a reference to both, but they aren’t as in your face as Roger Waters makes them out to be. His concept album concerned a persona going through the paces, and this show didn’t have a huge spoken narrative component.

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[Interview] David Elendune on Welcome To Croglin at the 2024 Victoria Fringe

Writer/director David Elendune is pretty much a regular on the Victoria theatre scene since 2009 and with this latest being his 8th, he’s more than a veteran of this world!

Outpost 31 - Welcomed to Croglin
For advance tickets, please visit Intrepid Theatre’s website.

Coming to the 2024 Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival is Outpost 31’s Welcome To Croglin. This play written and directed by David Elendune concerns a lone, unnamed, struggling artist (Jared Gowen) desperately needing to find his muse.

It appears as the ghost of Katharine Hepburn (Christina Patterson), and what she says is thus: “Some days I’m Katharine Hepburn. Some days I’m Kate. Some days I’m Katharine Hepburn pretending to be Kate. Some days I’m Kate pretending to be Katharine Hepburn. For do not be mistaken, ours is very much an egocentric profession—perfect for stupid people who like to pretend they are not stupid. But alas, never quite knowing whether they are actually any good, or just plain lucky.”

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