Toronto Fringe Review: A Cigarette That's Good For You

It’s hard to believe that the talented artists in this excellent sketch comedy show only came together six months ago. Their rapport and chemistry feels like they’ve been working and performing as a troupe for years. 

After a multimedia intro riffing on the show’s ironic title, they launch into their material proper, sending up phrases that have problematic origins (staged as a game show), addictions to smart phone video games and how desensitized and jaded we are living in the bustling city. 

Two longer sketches show off the group’s range and stylistic risk-taking. In one, an office worker (Simon Pond) decides to buy Napoleon Bonaparte’s penis at an online auction. The way he then integrates his purchase into various life scenarios sends up many storytelling clichés. In the other, a woman (Talia Rockland) playing a secretary in a noir film complains about the music used for her entrance, preferring the jazzy sting that accompanies the femme fatale (Carley Thorne). No director is listed in the program, but these scenes show an obvious experienced outside eye.

What’s so winning about this troupe is that they stay true to their millennial experiences. Anyone who grew up listening to the radio hosts Roz and Mocha (Matt McCready and Sachin Sinha) will chuckle about the duo’s evolution as they graduated to more unhinged pronouncements on podcasting and YouTube platforms.

As with all their sketches, the humour here is biting but never mean-spirited. My one quibble with the show, besides the fact that a few blackout lines don’t land and that Tim Blair could be featured more prominently, is that performers Rockland and Thorne look a bit alike, which the troupe itself acknowledges by casting them (in one of the more surreal bits) as the twins from The Shining. 

But as those twins say in the movie, "Come and play with us." Gladly.

A Cigarette That’s Good For You is on now until July 13 at the Toronto Fringe. Schedule and Tickets.