Our last night out reviewing theatre in 2020 was spent at Comedy Bar seeing six pieces at the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival. The best of them was the incredible first solo effort from Anders Yates. Over the years, we’ve seen Yates perform excellent team sketch and improv, traditional scripted work, and even some stand-up comedy. […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2019 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. One of my favourite productions out of the 2019 Toronto Fringe Festival was Gillian Bartolucci’s Outstanding Solo Performance-nominated one woman sketch show The Weight of it All. Beautifully constructed with a perfect blend of high-octane fun, clever […]
Usually the premise for a comedy troupe is quaint, maybe a little quizzical. Dead Parents Society answers your first question right away and rejoices in how uncomfortable it makes you. Its members all lost a parent at a young age and combine to give a portrait of grief that’s darkly, uniquely comic and all the […]
Award-winning comedian Ian McIntyre blends the relatable and the absurd in his new revue, The Rise and Fall of Dataman, running for two nights at The Bad Dog Theatre. In a series of sketches, directed by Kirsten Rasmussen, he recounts life as a 9-5 paper pusher with an exuberance and expressiveness that contrast sharply with […]
Second City’s 82nd and current Mainstage revue, Walking On Bombshells, opens on a stage that’s a convincing mock-up of the dingy Osgoode subway station. It’s the backdrop for the show’s opening musical number, a ditty about the perils of subway travel entitled “Is It Warm or Is It Wet?” That specificity is unusual for the Mainstage […]
The Resistance Continues. That’s the sub-title of The Second City’s latest run of their feminist sketch phenom She The People. And there are a lot of things to resist: those who are against vaccinating their children, men telling women what they can and can’t do, or double standards that women have to deal with. Carly Heffernan, […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. One of Toronto’s most consistently hilarious people, the great Tricia Black is the living embodiment of the Outstanding Sketch or Improv Production category, nominated as part of the ensemble of both a sketch show (She the […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual…
There’s some pretty stellar comedy to be found in Toronto this summer and it’d be a shame to let it go undiscussed in the craziness of festival season. So, while I hate to combine sketch & improv into one article (and be scolded for it by comedians- I Know They’re Very Different!), here’s a roundup […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews A Kev n’ Cal Mystery (A+) A comedic play that is very reminiscent of the Hardy Boys, a Kev n’ Cal Mystery is riotously funny and nostalgic. Live ukelele accompaniment (Matt Gerber) is the perfect touch and tone, and very tastefully delivered. The timing of […]
Theatre can be a gamble so sometimes it’s nice to see something you’re relatively sure about going in. On stage now in Toronto there are three such shows- one a critical favourite (Second City), one from a never-fail company (Coal Mine), and one with the sort of dependable source material that’s impactful no matter what […]
I didn’t get to see much this year at the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival but here’s what I did catch: Jon Blair Solo sketch feels like it maybe shouldn’t work but Jon Blair’s whole thing is making things that shouldn’t work work so of course this show works, performed completely alone with only one small […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. 32 Short Sketches About Bees was one of the great delights of the 2017 Toronto Fringe Festival. Half of the twice-previously-nominated sketch troupe Dame Judy Dench (Jessica Greco, Chris Leveille, and Shannon Lahaie) teamed up with […]
Party Today (Panic Tomorrow) is an apt name for The Second City Toronto’s silliest and least political mainstage show in a few cycles. There are moments when the bold political humour that made the last revue so impactful shows back up (Brandon Hackett makes a police brutality joke out of nowhere and its lack of […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Kara Sevda (A) Kara Sevda appears at first glance to be a simple boy-meets-girl encounter, a cleverly written little rom-com full of aces quips from playwright Lisa VillaMil and charming performances by Kat Haan and Ross Somerville as two attractive young strangers (her American, […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Delirium (A) Martin Dockery’s storytelling style is almost manic; he speaks a mile a minute and moves about the stage with such restless energy that his few moments of stillness are shockingly poignant. In Delirium, he tells three stories (plus various stories-within-the-story) about love, […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews 32 Short Sketches About Bees (A) This quirky collection of literally 32 short sketches about bees (with that definition expanded to include “B”, Bea”, “Be”, and various references to buzzing) comes from a sketch supergroup with a little bit of Bad Dog (La Grande […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Pillow Talk (B+) Admittedly my experience with sketch comedy is limited, but I really enjoyed this original show created by Adam Martignetti and sketch comedy duo The O.C. (Charlotte Cattell and Olivia Brodie-Dinsdale) about three people who just can’t get it right. All Second […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. One of our most-nominated artists of the year, improviser Colin Munch is competing against himself in the Outstanding Sketch/Improv Performance category as a cast member of La Grande Jatte and creator/director/cast member of True Blue, both with Bad […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Peter n’ Chris (Peter Carlone and Chris Wilson) is arguably the most popular Fringe Festival act in the country, touring the cross-Canada circuit pretty much every year and winning all the Best of Fest & Patron’s Pick awards. […]
2017 sucks, everything’s scary, America’s crumbling into ruins and taking the rest of the world down with it, blah blah blah; this we all know and, if you don’t, well, I’m sorry to break it to you. But what do we have? We have eloquent essayists and brave cartoonists and that incredible kid who set […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Anders Yates is one of my favourite improvisers in the city (or anywhere, really), so he’s predictably nominated for Outstanding Sketch/Improv Performance for his work with Bad Dog Theatre on the beautiful new show La Grande Jatte. But […]
Check out Parts 1 & 2 of our SketchFest coverage. The Defiant Thomas Brothers This American duo clearly prides itself on being edgy (just look at that promo shot :s) and they are edgy. I would even say they mostly walk the line successfully of shock factor without toppling over into tastelessness. A street corner […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Clever, quirky and insightful sketch troupe Dame Judy Dench is nominated for the second year in a row for Outstanding Sketch/Improv Performance. Combining the unique voices of Shannon Lahaie, Jessica Greco, Chris Leveille, Gavin Pounds and Claire Farmer, the group’s […]
Vest of Friends A four-guy group in ugly vests, Vest of Friends hit the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival with a goofy and superficial set full of boyish observational humour- “what’s with the grunt at the end of the Home Improvement theme song?!”- and silly wigs. Their entry into the unofficial “killing one of our troupe […]
Tom and Erica It all starts in the darkness, a tiny stage in front of you and the shuffling of a restless audience waiting for the comedian to come on stage. The Toronto Sketch Festival was created 10 years ago with a clear mission: to make Toronto a funnier place to be. As part of […]