Fado - The Saddest Music in the World

 

Escape to Portugal by heading down to the Firehall Arts Centre to catch the spellbinding tale of Fado - The Saddest Music in the World. 

We follow a young woman and her mother as they travel across the waters back to their homeland in Lisbon, Portugal, to learn about the wonders of Fado music, grieve the singer Amalia Rodrigues, and come face to face with ghosts of their pasts and present. 

I was lucky enough to attend the show on a night when the Consultate General of Portugal was in the audience, and he generously invited everyone upstairs for an after-party complete with port and Portuguese tarts for everyone! 

 Fado - The Saddest Music in the World is on for one more week until Feb 5 at the Firehall ! 

Little Willy

 

Ronnie Burkett returns to the Cultch in his first post-pandemic performance, and boy was the crowd ready for it.  Little Willy is the latest incarnation of the infamous Daisy Theatre troupe's repertoire. This time around, they tackle William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but also not quite. 

They do make it through the general storyline of the love story tragedy, but with the backstage bickering and musical interludes, this is most definitely a Daisy Theatre production and not a marionette version of Bard on the Beach. Rather, this one is pure joy and hilarity! 

Throw in some audience participation, including as Burkett described it, "two shirtless guys and four dancing dicks," and you know this is not a puppet show for the kids. It's raunchy and it's funny and it's also touching, in that sentimental way of how things used to be, before 2020 turned the world upside down. 

The audience, Ronnie Burkett, and the puppets, were all thrilled to be in the room sharing this one of a kind unique experience. You could attend each night of the run and get a different show, so do it already! 

Little Willy is on now at The Cultch until January 29.