High Tea

High Tea, written by James Brown & Jamesy Evans, directed by David MacMurray Smith

James & Jamesy, the critically acclaimed comedy duo from England, have brought their show entitled High Tea to the Montreal Fringe Festival. They model themselves after Monty Python and Mr. Bean type characters, and incorporate a lot of physical humour and totally bizarre sketches that seem to be going nowhere, but end up turning into an epic journey. 

The premise is that James and Jamesy meet up once a week for a tea party. The show starts off with a strong dose of physical theatre where we see Jamesy moving about the stage with a teapot showing off his wonderfully bendy body. His friend James arrives, and we are treated to a (supposedly) comical situation full of miscommunication. There were some people laughing in the audience, but the show takes too much time to really get going.

Luckily High Tea redeems itself in the 35 minutes with a delightful breaking of the fourth wall when the audience actually becomes a part of the show. Everyone gets caught up in a magnificent adventure created by Jamesy's imagination. That being said, the quality of this show on any given night will be affected by the audience's willingness to play along. 

You can check out High Tea until Sunday, June 22 at Cabaret du Mile End (5240 du Parc). All the details are available at the Montreal Fringe Festival website.