A Canadian Bartender at Butlin's
For those who are new to this Fringeing business let me explain that T.J. Dawe is probably the best monologist working the circuit today. He's a lanky, rubber-jointed, immediately likable young chap to whom nothing dull ever seems to happen.
Dawe's fingerprints are all over the Fringe this year. You can see his influence in such already successful works as The Power of Ignorance, The One-Man Star Wars Trilogy and Toothpaste and Cigars.
Canadian Bartender at Butlin's is his one one-man show.
Apparently Butlin's is the WEM of English resorts. Dawe spent a season there as a bartender. He begins his almost 90 minutes with a story of an eerie happening at his summer camp on a B.C. island. His storytelling technique consists of breaking his narrative down into small vignettes and then moving on to another anecdote and, if you are wondering what a supernatural event on a West Coast island has got to do with a summer in bondage in England - just wait. As Dawe continues, all the elements start to come together and everything (well, nearly everything) makes sense.
Often the vignettes are delivered with such telling force and humour that the audience breaks into applause as if for a singer who has just finished a showstopper. As when he launches into a description of the impenetrable drinking habits of the British or another hilarious bit about how words that are innocuous over here are highly sexually charged across the pond. (Fanny pack?)
Dawe is awesomely articulate, packing a tremendous amount of detail and sharp observation in his stories and then delivering them with the speed of a Gatling gun. He also has a good ear for dialogue and the musicality of the various accents of Britain. (They are equally as fascinated by the Canadian accent and kept waking him up at Butlin's to hear him speak "Canadian.'')
Dawe is a storyteller, not a comic, but his misadventures will leave you with everything from gentle giggles to convulsive laughter.
5 Suns (out of 5)
Colin MacLean
Edmonton Sun
August 2003
