No Tweed Too Tight - Enjoyable. Strange. Tweedy.

The night I saw No Tweed Too Tight the CBC was also having a gala event for Fashion's Night Out. On one side of the building the line snaked around the block - on the other six of us lined up and huddled into the shade to avoid the sun. All told, about 12 people made it out for the inaugural show at the new CBC Fringe venue and the first run of Monster Theatre's No Tweed Too Tight, which is a shame, because I bet we had just as much fun as the people next door, without having to strut around in confining, binding clothing. Well, except for Ryan Gladstone, who bravely performed a 60-minute one-man show at break neck speeds in a tweed suit. There was a lot of sweat.

Told in a series of flashbacks, No Tweed Too Tight relies on running gags, your-mom type humor, and a dash of Anchorman absurdity. We follow Grant Canyon, a “high profile” insurance investigator who constantly passes out and wakes up to find himself in increasingly ridiculous and far-fetched scenarios. He's pissed off everyone - the RCMP, the CIA, FBI, even the SPCA - and must unravel his latest insurance case and his sketchy memories. Its a fun little trip to take the audience on, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. The losing-consciousness gag eventually wears thin, and somewhere in the middle the plot starts to drag, being weighed down by all the exposition necessary to get Grant Canyon from one place to the next, but it picks up again for a final showdown that pays off in explosive ways.

At the show I attended Ryan Gladstone played Canyon with vigor, but for the majority of the remaining performances he will be performed by Bruce Horak. The production was enhanced by the campy retro soundtrack by Robbie Grunwald, and it didn't hurt that the voice-over recordings and sound effects were top notch. Gladstone and Horak have created a tightly crafted, cheesy little world for Grant Canyon to run amok, and it's pretty damn fun to put the pieces together and go along for the ride.