shotgun standup

WM Mid-Life Crisis. A comedy
from Sensible Footwear at
the Firehall Arts Centre to
June 13. Tickets 689-0926.

Somehow, despite vears of
Fringe attendance, | have never
seen Sensible Footwear,

Always meant to.

Their trademark Dac
Martens have been putting the
boots to sexist stereotypes for
years, while their humor has
always had the reputation of
staying en the lighter side and
Not stomping a message into
your fice.

Saturday at The Firehall
Arts Centre, despite their self:
protessed lave for “poking
people with sharp sticks,” I
found Alex Dallas and Alison
Field often rude but never
crude.

Dallas and Field are 100%
British onstage but these nwo
smart wonien have made
Toronto their home since
1992. They ieft a country
whose politics they hated —
“We never met anyone who
actually voted for John Major
so perhaps they were lying
about that majority.”

Why Toronto rather than
Vancouver? “We had an agent.
He insisted Toronto was better.
He never got us any work.”

They hop the Adantic once
a year for a fix of baked beans
and perhaps that is the truth of
Toronto — emotionally it feels
closer to home.

You might nor want to take
your great aunt to see Mid-Life
Crbsis, especially if she wears
“foundation garments” the

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a

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color of wel old
underwear, bur
any woman in the
neighborhood of
the big Four Oh
is going to relate.

T think.

Tiound the
experience
refreshing, having
4 soft spot for 4
southem English
dialect honed by
years of “compre-
hensive” education. But F won
dered whether the accents that
were comfortingly close to
home for me might be distanc-
ing to some Canadians.

After all, the show’s con-
cept should be familiar to its
audience, bur does aging
become less universal when
described in another culture's
voice?

Not that Mid-daje Crisis
sticks stricly to its premise.
There's more than the fear of
forty in this collection of wit
and wisdom.

The show is a collection of
“bits”: sketches, monologues
and a few songs that odd up to
90 minutes of stand-up come-
dy.

On the tear of inconti-
nence: tea dances might be
risky.

On the code for talking to
your mother on the phone:
“Fn fine” means even your
shrink finds you boring.

On sperm: if God were a
woman it would taste of
chocolate.

Dallas and Field perform on
a bare stage, sing acapelia (with

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strong harmony:
and use ne props.
Its them and their
mater, Nothing
lasts too long.
Ones the
been introduced
and dhe point made
ins unto the nent
bit

Vhere’s comtort in
the PERE, Like
nding the bua, vou
know if van don't
like this ane there'll be another
one dong in a ninute.

Sonie links are seamless. A
piece on the herror of mirrors

~ “the nightmare has come
true, Pye turned into my
mother™ -— segues into the
annoying habits of mothers -~
“Do vou dike weaing vour hair
like thar?”

Others bits just pop up to
change tempo, or because ...
well, T don’t know, maybe it
seemed like a good idea to
them at the time.

Although I smiled through
much of Mid-Life Crisis, rewro-
spectively it took me a while to
accept it for dre exterided set
of comedy sketches that it is.

T know my reaction was, to
some extent, unfair, [fT had
caught the show at the Fringe
Festival or at a comedy club
over a few beers Pm sure the
context would have intluenced
my perceptions more positively.

As it was, ] coulda’r help
wondering whar these nwo tal-
ented writers and performers
might have come up with if
they had stayed focused on the
topic at hand: turning forty.

ude. a has

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Pimcan the country and
western co mail song and the
ope abet dirt and grime were
amusing, bur Thad no idea
wha ches were there,

The enhot approach to
huanng big game enspres that
some pellets t hic tlie mark, but
vone of the lead will have the
same power to felba target as
one from the carefully armed
smper’s nile.

344

1 had the opportunity to
seo Ragtime tor a second time
last week.

Penjaved myself so nich I
reread mv review (North
Shore News, May 15).

‘The caveats therein remain
truc, but they equiver ore a lit-
tle too much

This is one dama fine musi-
cal! support and are Sensible Footwear.

Photo cover above of Michael's remarxable book.
An unforgettable book by an amazing young man!!

Come and meet Cancer survivor, former B.C.
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IN PERSON! BOOK SIGNINGS!
Sunday, June 14
llamelpm at Pemberton Plaza, 1250 Marine
2pm-4pm at Pari & Tilford, 333 Brooksbanik

Drive
Avenue

SAVE-ON-FOODS

ee ee es
Cate etoeaea

_wwweoverwaiteascom’, .*."/

Proto Pierre Gautroay
ALISON Field, left, and Alex Dailas wear proper arch