Chicks and Gen X add good energy to the Fringe
You’ve only got until July 28th to make the most of the Hamilton Fringe Festival. Be sure to check out the free 90-minute walking tours which are a great way to pass the time between performances.
Big Chick Energy: My Best Friends Sketch Show! Credit: The Hamilton Fringe Festival
Looking for a light, bright, overall happy show that will make you laugh? Then, get tickets to Big Chick Energy: My Best Friends Sketch Show!
Billed as a friendship bracelet in the form of a sketch revue, a pinky promise to be best friends forever, a cootie catcher filled with possibilities! It is all those things and so much more.
Emily Decloux, Alicia Carrick, Jo Anne Tacorda, Sam Sexton, and Julia Jones – all hailing from Hamilton and Toronto – have a synergy that makes their comedy look and feel effortless.
Think of Big Chick Energy as Saturday Night Live only better, sharper, faster moving and naturally flowing from one hilarious sketch to the next without missing a beat – sometimes literally as cast members occasionally breaking into song.
Yesterday’s audience, a mash up of young and old, men and women, belly laughed throughout the entire performance and couldn’t get to their feet fast enough to give The Chicks a long, well deserved standing ovation for all their Big Chick Energy!
Great show to see with your BFF.
General Admission: $14
Age Suitability: Parental Guidance (ages 13+)
Warnings: None
Genre: Sketch Comedy/Improv
Run Time: 60 mins
Gavin Stephens: Object of Strangeness Credit: The Hamilton Fringe Festival
Gavin Stephens: Object of Strangeness is a gem. The Guyanese-Portuguese comedian’s one-man standup routine is not only fabulous, it’ll prove thought provoking for some OWM – old white men – and Karens in the audience.
Stephens once found solace in the subcultures that shaped his comedy. But as the pandemic ended, the 49-year-old realized he no longer fit neatly into those boxes.
Stephens navigates the complexities of race, culture, and societal change while searching for where he truly belongs in this evolving landscape. And, thank goodness, Stephens lets the audience come along for the ride.
How many comedians can start out talking about cheese – something virtually everyone loves but doesn’t really know how it’s made – and then morph into adult diapers with superhero logos or how buying a Starbucks coffee is just about all that most folks are willing do to ensure social justice rights for workers.
Then, there’s realizing that Gen X is the new old; how no one trusts capitalism, government, media or science; and the fact that pronouns have become a bigger issue than a world literally on fire.
Stephens even makes buying a package of gum socially illuminating and funny, ending with a nod to Shelly Niro’s tee shirt series, but in Stephens’ case substitute racial profiling for ancestral annihilation and all you end up with is a tee shirt.
General Admission: $14
Age Suitability: Parental Guidance (ages 13+)
Warnings: Coarse Language
Genre: Theatre—Comedy, Theatre—Drama, Storytelling/Solo Show
Run Time: 60 mins
Check out Stephens’ website for upcoming shows and to listen to his Uncolonized podcasts.
Things are fine Actually written and staring ethicist Neil McArthur is anything but fine.
In fact, I’m going to play the parent card – something I have never done in my journalistic career. You know, when parents are trying to teach their kids not to hurt other folks’ feelings and say, “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.”
Throwing that card down hard!
You’ve only got until July 28th to make the most of the Hamilton Fringe Festival. Be sure to check out the free 90-minute walking tours. I’m hearing great things about this entertaining way to pass the time between performances!
Thanks to everyone who read today’s article. With your continued support, a little Nicoll can make a lot of change.