The Parker and Seville Show

Parker and Seville: there's no business like show business

I’m a sucker for a bit of fast-talkin’, jazz-handin’ vaudville, and this was exactly what was promised on the flyer for *The Parker and Seville Show*. Trying in earnest to emulate classical greats like Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello, Dave Barclay and Matt Kowall inserted their own brand of absurdity and vulgarity into an ancient formula.

The humour was off-colour at best, but a lot of otherwise suspect jokes were saved from falling flat by the grace of their breakneck energy alone. Tim Gilbert evened things out nicely as the duo’s humpbacked, crotchety manager Mr. McGudgeon, narrating their meteoric rise to fame, and subsequent downfall. The group repeatedly toed the line of the fourth wall to poke fun at the amateur nature of their own act (set appropriately in the grocery section of Honest Ed’s) but that didn’t entirely make up for the fact that they still need to iron out a lot of bumps.

_The Parker and Seville Show continues to July 12th as part of this year's Toronto Fringe Festival. For more information and show times soft-shoe your way_ "here":http://www.fringetoronto.com/fringe09/indoorBYOV_listings.html#T

_or you could always go to their own_ "website":http://www.parkerandseville.com/

By Ryan West