Uncalled For all over the Fringe

I had the chance to bartend at the Fringe fundraiser at Mainline theatre last night and I got to watch Uncalled For perform musical improv with Fraser McDougall on the guitar and loops. After the show, I served up cold beers and cheep red wine and listened in on the buzz among the audience: was it really all made up on the spot?

I have been a fan of Uncalled For since they were wee babes (by which I mean John Abbott college kids) and I can guarantee that what is billed as improv is definitely improv - no catch. But if you have any doubts, the sheer absurdity of last night’s musical theatre performance should be all you need to satisfy yourself of that. Just try to picture the scriptwriter pitching this one:

178-year-old Tom Wilkinson, suspecting that he doesn’t have too many more years ahead of him, is in desperate need of an heir for his vast shampoo fortune. Meanwhile, Mathilda, who is almost 200 years old (a lady never tells, but size of her ears can give it away) is wandering the rather disenchanted “forest for broken-hearted women.” When her sanctuary is threatened by chainsaw wielding men bent on the destruction of all living things, she embarks on a mission to recapture her long-lost lover - you guessed it - Tom. With the help of a specifically dislikeable detective and a windows-powered supercomputer, Mathilda learns that her old flame is exactly where she left him smoldering 75 years before.

By the time Mathilda arrives at the estate, Tom has already fallen prey to his household servant’s plot to murder him with a dish of broiled onion in poison sauce. Tom’s long long drawn-out (but apparently not too painful) death allows him plenty of time to be reunited with Mathilda one last time and learn that she indeed bore him a child. The lovers have to suppress their urge to vomit when they discover the ravages of the past seven decades each other’s bodies, but they overcome their disgust and join together in a sexy death-bed dance to the tune “Dying for a good time.”

Aw, now I’ve gone and spoiled the ending for you, you’re saying…but really, it’s the oldest formula in the geriatric romance genre…and anyways, it’ll be a whole other story next time that Uncalled For performs and the time after that and so on.

The next seven times you can catch Uncalled For are during the Montreal Fringe Festival. The conniving 6-some has also commandeered a second fringe show, Thunderspank, featuring sketch comedy and film shorts. Plus, Dan and Anders re-appear nightly - as Zack Winters and Sweet Sweet Jimmy Priest - to host the 13th hour, the Fringe’s late night talk show that showcases favourite performers, abrupt dance parties, lots of booze, and, um, i forget.