Review: (Toronto) You Detective (Fringe)

Silliness
by Beat Rice

You Detective is an improv sketch comedy starring Evan Arppe, Eric Miinch, and Josh Murray, in which two competing detectives begin to investigate the kidnapping of Toronto’s Mayor. The only thing that makes this structured improv different from most others is that the audience has a say in which direction the story goes. When at a crossroads, the performer presents two ridiculous options and the one with the more enthusiastic applause is where the ‘detective story’ goes. It is a good idea to get audiences involved but most of the choices were absurd and were probably inside jokes between the performers. Some of the options seem to be derived from the sole fact that the performers had a hilarious prop lying around that they really wanted to use.
 
There were a couple of scenes where the action, or the gag went on for too long. You can feel it in the audience even if the performers are having a blast messing with each other on stage. The gag got old five minutes ago - move on to the next. 

It was silliness  and nonsense from beginning to end, complete with wigs and poop jokes.  If you have a crass sense of humour then this may be the kind of show for you. 

July 2 - 13