The Edmonton Fringe, 2026
Terry and I started attending the world’s second largest Fringe Festival when we lived in Calgary….over 26 years ago. It always falls near Terry’s birthday and also because we MET onstage ….it is such a fun way to celebrate.
This year was no exception so we spent Terry’s birthday seeing shows. The big difference is that when we first started attending I think the shows were like $5.00 each and we would run from show to show all day. Now they cost $18.00 each and you have to prebook online.
Our first show was on the Friday evening at the Roxy Theatre. It was a last minute idea to go out for pizza and then we found a show on a whim.
Now: my habit in the last many years has been to wait a bit and then look up the reviews in the paper so that I can choose a 5 star show! But the show that we chose on our whims was ….well….it wasn’t that!
The premise was that 2 ‘men’ were in love with the same woman. It was supposed to be a comedy. Costumes: horrible. Direction: odd. Acting: some good. Set: o.k.
But when the one man enlisted the other to make a porno movie of the girl and the men kept talking about how…um…’excited’ they became when they even looked at her….no thanks! But, that’s the Fringe for you: some good, some bad, some funny, some weird, some even great!
We DID have luck on Terry’s actual birthday though and in fact, one of the shows was one of THE best we’ve EVER seen!
We even popped into one of the venues that was serving tea and scones in between shows. It was great to be served by our dear friends, Cathy and David, who work at the pop up church tea shop every year.
We enjoyed the “Big, Stupid, Improv Show”, “2 Truths and a Lie” storytelling show, and the best show in years….”Not Quite Sherlock”, a 5 Star, one man show where he plays several characters as he tells a remarkable story (that the performer wrote) about a bumbling detective. Oh, we also saw a not so great storytelling, one woman show, about her disappointment with men. Boo. We even got to have dinner downtown with our daughter, Emmy!
