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The factor about fringe festivals is, when the lights come up on the stage, you count on to satisfy some fairly distinctive characters and typically even wild, bizarre, wacky and outrageous ones. In any case, you’re not attending a lecture.

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If these are your expectations, relaxation assured the artists on the 2022 Calgary Fringe Pageant are definitely not going to disappoint.

Simply minutes into his present, The Most Sincere Man within the World, Vancouver author, performer and director Andrew Wade admits he’s a little bit of a fibber, if not an outright liar. He confesses his declare to being essentially the most trustworthy individual on this planet is pure hyperbole. He does insist although that, for the 60 or so remaining minutes of his monologue, he will likely be brutally trustworthy.

His present’s promo materials, which says he’ll construct a polygraph machine, can be hyperbole. As a substitute,  he explains and illustrates how a number of the actions of these units may be duplicated by a cellphone and a easy coronary heart monitor.

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What Wade actually needs to share are his emotions of inadequacy that started at an early age. He insists he’s by no means understood the entire idea of loving and being liked. When he was 5, he wouldn’t sing the phrase love in any of the hymns at church as a result of it meant nothing to him and that hesitation has performed a significant function in all his relationships with girls, so he says, and the way in which he says it sounds as truthful as it’s painful.

Wade says he wrote this present seven years in the past however has by no means memorized it. This permits Wade to fumble and fidget and appear to lose focus nevertheless it’s all a really intelligent performing system. He’s like a Canadian Woody Allen, splendidly convincing and self-deprecating. He makes use of cue playing cards to maintain himself on observe and he has two bulletin boards with gadgets from his previous together with the report card he wrote for himself in elementary faculty wherein he stated confidence is his lowest rating From time to time a card comes up with the title Sarah on it which he ignores so you realize it’s in all probability crucial one within the deck.

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Wade is so convincing because the timid loser that he simply wins the viewers’s sympathy, particularly when he recollects what it meant in junior highschool to lastly have an precise pal to speak to as a substitute of an imaginary one, or the primary time he labored up the braveness to kiss a woman.

The really exceptional factor about The Most Sincere Man within the World is the character that Wade creates is so actual, that it’s straightforward to neglect he’s as expert an actor as he’s a author. The Most Sincere Man within the World is fringing at its best.

The Most Sincere Man runs within the Lantern Church’s Fellowship Corridor till Aug. 6.

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Additionally hailing from Vancouver are Hillary Fillier and Joanne Rannelli, the creators and performers of The Morning After With Pam and Paula – a sketch comedy spoof of morning present hosts.

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The premise is {that a} radio station has been holding a contest to decide on the hosts of its new morning present. The contestants have been whittled down to 2 pairs, Pam and Paula being one among them. We’re seeing their ultimate tryouts.

Because the viewers recordsdata into the Lantern Church Sanctuary, Fillier and Rannelli are already in character. They’re sitting on the make-up desks placing on the ending touches, which implies we solely get to satisfy the relatively outlandish characters they’ve created with their exaggerated make-up and wigs.

That is the sort of schtick Carol Burnett and Vicki Lawrence used to do on the Carol Burnett Present and the antics that gas the Saturday Evening Reside skits every week. It’s extraordinarily efficient in small doses however look what occurred when SNL spun its characters into such motion pictures as MacGruber, Coneheads, It’s Pat and A Evening on the Roxbury. The joke, nearly as good because it was, fizzled out.

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The best instance of how these outlandish shenanigans can work in bigger doses is in what Tyler Perry and his firm of actors do within the Madea motion pictures nevertheless it requires quite a lot of slapstick and that’s what Fillier and Rannelli are prepared to dish out. If nothing else, they’re courageous, unflinching comediennes.

There’s a intelligent sequence wherein Pam and Paula look by way of mementos of their respective highschool reminiscence packing containers. Pam has a very good luck butterfly hair clip she decides to make use of to assist them win the competition and a cherry-scented marker she sniffs. Paula brings out her outdated 90210 T-shirt and squeezes into it. It’s efficient and enjoyable.

Each Fillier and Rannelli get to play a particular visitor which reveals the actors’ versatility. Paula turns into a cowgirl motivational speaker who actually tries to whip Pam right into a winner’s mindset and Pam turns into an eccentric fashionista who’s going to show Paula to stroll the stroll of a winner.

Pam and Paula try their hardest to make the viewers love them and after about half-hour it’s troublesome to determine if it’s the characters or the actors who’re pulling out all of the stops to be liked.

The Morning After With Pam and Paula runs within the Lantern Church Sanctuary till Aug. 6.

For a full schedule and tickets, go to calgaryfringefestival.ca