NBC’s new family drama This Is Us is being marketed as the new Parenthood. The fact that Parenthood had to die so this could live has to be one of the great tragedies of the modern television age. Where that show was honest and nuanced, this one is contrived and obvious. Naturalistic dialogue is replaced […]
How? Why? What? Literally, though, HOW?! Does Kevin James have illicit photos of the CBS top brass? Is there a curse on Erinn Hayes? Is it possible this has been on a shelf for ten years and CBS only pulled it out because hackers erased all of their 2016 pilots leaving them with nothing to […]
Friday night, Bad Dog Theatre Company premiered the first two new formats in their fall season: Past Dark and La Grande Jatte. Because the improv company’s Bloor West theatre offers the best deal in town (see an additional show for only $5!), I stayed for the 11pm performance of fan favourite Network Notes as well. […]
Written and directed by SNL‘s recently promoted co-head writer Chris Kelly, Other People follows misanthropic struggling writer David (Jesse Plemons) in the final year of his mother’s life. We first meet Joanne (Molly Shannon in the performance of her career) applying makeup for a New Years Eve party that’s raging downstairs without her. She has […]
All My Sons This Arthur Miller drama feels a-typical for the company that’s made its name on Shakespeare and its money on musicals. Though modern drama isn’t Stratford’s usual racket, Martha Henry’s smartly cast and emotionally wrought production might be the best thing at the festival this year (well, maybe second to Breath of Kings: […]
Who knows where it’ll go but the pilot of ABC’s new sitcom Speechless was one of the strongest comedy debuts I’ve seen in ages. Simultaneously championing inclusion and skewering those who loudly champion inclusion, the latest from producer Scott Silveri is a delightful middle finger to hypocrisy while also serving simply as a fun family […]
Kill Your Parents in Viking, Alberta (Storefront Arts Initiative & Blood Pact Theatre) A vibrant, fraught, fast-paced new tragi-comedy from playwrights Bryce Hodgson & Charlie Kerr, the oddly named Kill Your Parents in Viking, Alberta plays out in real-time in the kitchen of young mother Susan (Allie Dunbar, hilarious in her immovability) as she attempts […]
The Second City’s latest mainstage revue is as honest as it is funny, as biting as it is charming, and as surprising as it is (mostly) consistent. Every member of the cast brings a different style and point of view to the table, all hilarious in their own right but especially effective together. Created […]