Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival 2007

I decided to toss in a handy aggregator of all my Fringe reviews, so that if you want to link to them you need only link to this one post and get the rest.

Also, I'll do a bit of ranting and reviewing of the Fringe in general, just to give this post some meat.

The ticketing system, today's Edmonton Journal tells us, is the talk (complaint) of the town. Well, it's not perfect, but its a start. There are a couple of major issues: computer slowdowns and glitches have been a problem. For example, one of the plays I wanted to see was cancelled. The kiosk computer didn't know this. Well, okay, it knew it, but it didn't think to tell the poor girl running it: all she knew is one of my tickets wasn't printing. The lack of a scanner sucks, since you can't print tickets at home. And why the $2 processing fee is per ticket rather than per order seems like a money grab.

Other concerns: the backpack searches are sily. Are they even legal? Doesn't matter, just come in from the north (just east of KidsFringe) and you can pass all sorts of security, sandwich and all. Trust me, I've done it. The party at Next Act Pub doesn't seem as personal as years gone by... haven't seen a single actor there yet.

Oh, a good story: Sunday on the grounds I was approached by a woman protesting the elephants at the Valley Zoo. I angrily told her "I'm not hungry enough as it is, now you have to show me pictures of delicious elephant meat?". That pissed her off royally.

Another exciting tale: one of the Fringe show promoters (for Water perhaps) actually said "We have a classical pianist named Dina Dykrstrum". That can't be a real name!

Another fun fact: one of the audience members for Napoleon's Secret Diary the one night I attended was a dead-ringer for Margaret "Hot Lips" Hoolihan (er, Loretta Swit, not Sally Kellerman).

Okay, onto the reviews:
Day One: The Churchill Protocol
Day Two: Underneath the Lintel and Futures
Day Three: Stand Up Stand Outs
Day Four: How to Fake Clinical Depression
Day Five: Napoleon's Secret Diary
Day Six: Strawberries in January
Day Seven: Superhero LIVE! (new)
Day Eight: Dickens of the Mounted (new)