Jean-Daniel O'Donncada

If, like me, you lack the social skills to get a hot day with a sultry-voiced beautiful singer in Montréal... thank goodness for Lou.

Her show is as light and delightful as her music is deep and moving.

On the surface, this is classic stand up comedy. And excellent at that. But Jimmy is a rare comedian whose jokes excel isolation AND arc into a cleverly woven whole. He is an elder statesman of the Canadian Fringe scene, in that other artists look up to him and that he is older than most of us. The respect is well-earned.

A one-man show about a grown man's relationship with his dying father, this is a traditional straight play and drama, far removed from the ordinary quirky Fringe vibe, yet striking and beautiful at what it is.

The theatre hung on to every word.

Let's be blunt: this show is weird. It is chaotic. It is avant-garde. Tim stretches bits just enough to make you wonder if he knows what he is doing, if he has a plan. He does.

To me, this is the exact kind of thing I want in a Fringe show. It is neurotic and poignant. It is a roller coaster. It definitely would not be a serious or prudish person's cup of tea. But I am neither of those things, so it was a refreshing sweet tea spiked with balloons.

How do you write a character who starts charming and who you hate by the end, who you love and worry about, who just like a real life love with someone both beautiful and troubled you cannot quite name the moment when it all should have been clear to you...

I have no idea. But Sara Mayfield knows how. This show shows the pain behind fun, the care behind carefree.

Poignant but very honest memoir is a tough needle to thread, and Megan does it. Full of the kind of dark humour that makes you wonder if you should laugh or cry, while wondering if the protagonist should laugh or cry. The subject matter is heavy, but treated with an occasional irreverence that is an unapologetic coping mechanism, inviting audiences to be honest about our own coping mechanisms. This is the kind of up and coming theatre I want in a Fringe show.