I only just did my first night of this year’s Fringe Festival on Wednesday. I went with the Punchy Pass option again this year, which is certainly the best deal unless you know you’re going to Fringe hardcore and make an Ultra Pass worth your while. So far I’ve blown through one Punchy Pass, and I’ll use up two more before the end of the festival.

Executive Summary:
The Cody Rivers Show: Flammable People: Excellent.
Diary of Self Help Boot Camp: Felt like I’d probably seen it done before.
I Hate Kenny G: Not quite what I was expecting. *shrug*
The Comedy Jesus Show: Pretty good.
An Intimate Evening with Fotis; The Taller Side of Ferrari McSpeedy: Enjoyable.

What shows are you liking or hating?

The Cody Rivers Show: Flammable People
The is easily the best show I’ve seen so far. It’s sketch comedy, but it’s hard to know how to describe it beyond that. The kids are calling it “absurdist.” And I’ll just cut and paste the review I left on the Fringe website: “I had no idea what to expect from this show and it took me a while to get into it, but it proved to be hilarious. Pay attention throughout the show and the pay off will be worth it. The moments when the realization hits and it all comes together are delightful. It’s incredibly clever and refreshingly different.” Seriously fucking smart comedy. Love that. Makes my brain feel good.

Diary of Self Help Boot Camp
It was a better show when it was trying to be funny than it was when it was trying to be deep. The concept was decent, but it left me hanging. Didn’t really seem new and different.

I Hate Kenny G
I saw a preview of this at Fringe-For-All. That 3-minute bit was funny, but didn’t clue in to the fact that it’s a more multi-faceted show. There’s some storytelling and some saxophone playing. I didn’t not like it.

The Comedy Jesus Show
Pretty funny with lots of audience participation and improvisation. Hard to know how Jesus comedy is going to turn out for a few reasons. One, because a lot of it’s been done before. (This is good and bad. Some bits are always funny, and the world continuously provides us with fodder.) Two, because it’s hard to know how much of it you’re going to understand if you weren’t raised Catholic (or Christian). Definitely entertaining with great visual aids.

An Intimate Evening with Fotis
If you’ve seen a Brave New Workshop show in the last year, you’ve seen Mike Fotis. If you listen to the BNW’s podcast, you always want to yell, “I’M MIKE FOTIS!” when you see his name. (Or maybe that’s just me.) He sits in a chair and talks to you (where by “talking” I mean “mostly yelling”). Cracked me up and kept me engaged in spite of the fact that I was really tired by 11:30 at night when this show starts.