Saturday, September 16, 2006

Fringe Review: 40 Needles

Playwrights Theatre Centre at Festival House
September 15, 2006 9:15pm

Kristian Reimer plays a young comedian who is trying to make it in standup comedy in Toronto. Finding his comedy career not taking off, and his tedious part-time jobs failing to pay the bills, he answers an ad for pharmaceutical test volunteers--becoming a human guinea pig. One wonders if this plot line is autobiographical.

This one man play is mildly amusing and follows a typical sit-com storyline. Reimer is the straight man to an oddball cast of characters he meets in the drug trials. There's Don the slacker who does this for a living. Cliff is the generically ethnic taxi driver who calls everyone "my friend". Reimer makes fun of quintessentially Toronto fixtures like the Globe and Mail, Quizno's and Swiss Chalet.

At the end of the one week drug trial, Reimer gets his $4000 cheque but is left dissatisfied by the experience. At the end of the play, I got a few laughs but was left dissatisfied by the experience.

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