Jolly Roger: Weird, wacko, totally unpredictable are some of the words that comes into my mind thinking about this particular performance by Jonno Katz from Australia. On print its a puppet show but somewhere along the line it diverged into 'sappy' jokes about trees, two scorpions having an argument; even Jesus made an appearance- first as a sperm and then as a waiter. If a combo of all of the above rocks your world- go watch it. For everyone else like me, once you throw out any expectations of intelligence or coherence of story from this particular play, its quite funny ......in a weird 'pincy' sort of a way.

An Unfortunate Woman: This play was recommended to me by my ex-supervisor from work who I keep running into at various fringe shows! Nicola Gunn from Australia is definitely not unfortunate like the characters she plays, as the evening(8:30pm) show I went to was completely sold out in 10 minutes, an hour before it even started. I was expecting a funny play but it turned out to be the saddest thing I've seen on the Fringe so far(which by itself is not much as I only watched comedy). Its one wo(man) acting out a number of characters (male, female,young, old, even a dog) that are seemingly interconnected by one tramedic story of self-discovery on a rainy day in an unspecified place where everyone speaks with an accent. It was obvious that Ms Gunn is a very talented actress and is likely to go far. She did throw in a few funny scenes which made it all worthwile for me. Warrning: The Glen Morris theatre is not air-conditioned, but the Fringe staff were wonderful enough to provide hand held fans and free Freezies for everyone attending the show. Extra tip for the Fringe !:)

Death of a Vacuum Cleaner Salesman: This was also a recommendation, by Erika -the producer of the show who I ended up chatting to while lining up to see Jolly Roger. A most congenial woman who later graciously invited this science geek to the sunday night band performance at the Fringe club where all the performers hang out (yey! finally I'm cool!). Anyway back to the reveiw. DVCS is only 30 minutes long and is a take on Arthur Miller's classic play- Death of a Salesman, performed beautifully by Rob Monk & Peter Treadwell. No, I haven't read the play either, but having watched this version, I'm likely to get someone to read one of Miller's plays to me in future. It was hilarious. A true depiction of what the public thinks of telemarketers and the ways we try to avoid talking to them at any cost- even if it means killing the soul-sucking beasts. Cheers to Peter for portraying the beast with such endearing sincerity.

Sigh: My 5-play pass for the Fringe is all used up and I haven't had my fill yet :( . Bah. That it one more on Thursday.