A sampling of Fringe Festival must-sees for the final weekend of the fest

It has been a great couple of weeks as the 24^th edition of the St. Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival has been making waves across the 19 venues around the St. Laurent Boulevard area (downtown and the Plateau), as well as Mile End. With more and more shows creating more and more buzz that’s leading to more and more sold out performances, the focus of festival goers as the Fringe Fest wraps up this weekend, is to catch the shows that has been getting all that buzz through an endless stream of positive word-of-mouth. Here are some recommendations of select Fringe shows that I have seen that must not be missed.

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“James Mullinger is Living the Dream” at the offset sounds like a rather corny motivational/self-improvement speech. But the moment this veteran British comic bounds onto the stage, you’re in for an amazing hour of solo comedy. He shares with the audience the tattered pages of his life (from his tattered volumes of personal diaries), and how his steady rise into the world of comedy was for him, “living the dream”.

And before he got to the comedy stage, he endured a difficult upbringing that saw him live in a boarding school, where his teachers and classmates regarded him as a “double bill of failure”, to how he managed to rise above and live his dream on two fronts: becoming a movie critic for a British TV show (like his idol Barry Norman, the UK equivalent of Roger Ebert) that was called “Movie Kingdom”, and meeting his idol Paul McCartney. Mullinger’s boundless energy and way out storytelling really carries this show, and in a way, can be seen as a motivational speech (but much more entertaining). Don’t miss his Trip Advisor reviews of Montreal attractions and his herky-jerky, worst ever karaoke Elvis performance (you’ll never hear “All Shook Up” in the same light ever again).

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“Shakespeare Crackpot” is the follow-up to Montrealer Keir Cutler’s hit play “Teaching Shakespeare”, which has been making the rounds of Fringe Festivals across North America. This time, Cutler – whose mother May Cutler founded Tundra Books and served as the mayor of Westmount – delves into the controversy of the “Shakespeare Authorship Question”, and why his questioning of the fact that the Bard really wrote all of his classic plays and sonnets has labeled him as a “Shakespeare Crackpot”, and why there is not a shred of documentary proof of the Bard’s existence. Cutler delivers an eye-opening, passionate performance in this self-confessional, documentary-style show. Literary conspiracy has never been so entertaining as what’s offered in “Shakespeare Crackpot”.

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“High Tea” is a delightful throwback to the absurdist brand of British comedy that dominated the stage and airwaves during the 60s and 70s like Monty Python and The Goodies. It centres on two best buddies: Jamesy (he of the exaggerated movements and excitable nature) and James (he of the derby hat and somewhat logical outlook). Every week, James goes to Jamesy’s place for afternoon high tea. What he doesn’t expect is the way out comic adventures that happen in which tea plays a major role (this time, they end up on a deserted island surrounded by tea, amongst other comic situations). And there is plenty of audience participation and improv (if you’re not too careful, you may end up playing a shrieking man eating shark, or even the Queen of England). A fun show that will make you want to raise your cup in praise (and by the way, tea is actually served to every audience member … and in authentic china teacups).

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What happens when an actress performs 12 different monologues written by 12 different authors about 12 different subjects? Award-winning Fringe Fest actress Yana Kesala pulls it off quite remarkably in “12 Tongues”. She seamlessly performs the dozen monologues – with situations ranging from jumping into a large pile of leaves, to working in a theme camp, to moving into her 14^th apartment in 25 years – and somehow never breaks her acting rhythm. This is quite the live performance accomplishment that should be seen.

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Former Fringe Fest general manager Al Lafrance hits the stage with his autobiographical solo show “The Quitter”, and proves that the act of quitting is not the worst thing in the world. He admits that his quitting ways evolved in high school, where he was an A student, and suffered the stigma of perceived smartness. In fact, it takes a big leap while he attended Heritage College in Gatineau, where he managed to start a donut club that attracted a large following, but quit running the club when it became too successful. Lafrance gives an honest serio-comic performance, and shows that quitting is not always what it’s cut out to be (and if you’re one of the first few audience members to arrive early at the venue, you might even get a free donut).

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And don't forget, it's not too late to create more Fringe Fest buzz via social media. Just add the hashtag #fringebuzz with every related FB post or tweet.