Katherine Phelps

Arj Barker is a fine comedian with well-honed skills in his art. His popularity goes so much further than his participation in Flight of the Conchords. He knows how to set-up a joke, gauge the audience reaction, then bring the joke home in its most effective form. One thing that Barker does exceptionally well that [...]

Vachel Spirason—The Hermitude of Angus, Ecstatic Wow! This has been a great year for lovers of both dance and comedy. Vachel Spirason is another trained dancer who has taken to physical humour. And you can tell by his bodily command of the stage. Spirason is particularly strong in communicating personality and emotion with a twist [...]

New Art Club—Big Bag of Boom Tom Roden, Pete Shenton, and myself are all comedians who have embraced unitards. We are more than happy to make dancing fools of ourselves. Some comedians interweave a bit of wriggling to music into their routines. Rarely do you see dance made a central part of a comic act. [...]

Michael Workman—Humans Are Beautiful I’m not even half way through the festival and I’m already betting that Workman will at least be nominated for this year’s Barry Award, if not win it. This is the stand-out show of the season. Most comedy venues are awash with observational humour. The Comedy Festival is also dominated by [...]

Pajama Men—In The Middle of No One When people think of comedy outside of the festivals, they usually imagine dark sticky pubs where someone is doing a standup routine in the corner. Then festival time comes and theatrical comedy fills the world. Where do these people perform between festivals? At what venues do they hone [...]

Garfunkel & Oates are musical comedy duo Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome. They are performing as part of Headliners (USA). Their set was impeccably delivered, even facing the odd technical glitch. Lindhome and Micucci showed skill in their playing and tightly blended voices. The vocal clarity and articulation were excellent. This is important. Some people [...]

I used to be a professional theatrical reviewer for first a newspaper, then a magazine in Seattle. It was a reasonable way to make money as a budding creative writer. I have a number of funny stories about my experiences in that position. Writing this blog has been a return to some of those experiences: [...]

Asher Treleaven in Secret Door Yes, I saw Secret Door twice: once as a volunteer ticket-taker staring through the stage door window, and once as an audience member. What Asher did with his body to tell his stories and deliver his punchlines was fascinating viewing. This is of course all I could experience the first [...]

Barry Morgan’s World of Organs My face was genuinely sore from smiling after Barry Morgan’s World of Organs. Stephen Teakle’s alter ego “Barry Morgan” is a real charmer. The show is fun, uplifting, and hilarious. The concept behind the performance is that Barry is an organ salesman who has been forced to take to the [...]

The Fringe Festival does a lot to encourage atmospherics and free-floating art. In this way festival-goers are more likely to experience a diversity of art forms and feel encouraged to expand their tastes. I think even more can be done to promote artists in this way. Certainly the Festival Club helps. With paid entrance you [...]