Boyhood visitations from Satan, teens who fall for monsters, and shaving cans that sing sea chanteys make for wildly funny fare

SCRUPULOSITY The combination of an obsessive mind and guilt-inducing religion might make for a hellish life, but it can also produce a wildly funny and thought-provoking monologue. In this apparently autobiographical solo, Victoria's Andrew Bailey describes a vision of Satan that appeared at his bedroom door when he was a child: “It wasn't quite human. Something was just slightly off—like Joan Rivers, but worse.” Scrupulosity combines a keen sense of the absurd, an intelligent examination of faith, and tenderness that moved me to tears. One of the very best shows at this year's festival. At Stage 2, Studio 16, on September 15 (8:45 p.m.) and 17 (2:45 p.m.) > Colin Thomas

THE BEST OF THE PAJAMA MEN I would have preferred an entirely new show, but Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez are so good that it's hard to complain. Their work is surreal, fluid, fast—and all about transformation. They trade personas mid-scene, sometimes mid-sentence. The characters and relationships are hilarious; I'm thinking of Jennifer, the insanely innocent young teen who falls in love with a monster—“But Dad, he's in a band!”—and the two old ladies who explain to their shocked waiter, “You have to understand. We're elderly so we have to sometimes kiss.” These guys' physicality is so precise and joyous that watching them is downright erotic. As the title suggests, a lot of their best material is here—and some great new stuff. At Stage 3, Arts Club Granville Island Stage, on September 14 (9:15 p.m.) and 15 (5:15 p.m.) > CT

JESUS IN MONTANA Comedy saves lives—and sanity. In this autobiographical monologue, Barry Smith recounts his loopy spiritual journey. We've seen home movies of his sweet terrier before he refers to Abraham and Isaac, and confides: “At eight years old, I live in fear that God will command me to sacrifice Tippy.” As an adult, Smith's desire for an orderly, compassionate world leads him to an unlikely guru. When he wakes up with a spiritual hangover, he moans: “Did I really hitchhike up to Montana and accept an 80-year-old pedophile as my personal saviour?” An outrageous story told with shameless simplicity. At Stage 4, Waterfront Theatre, on September 14 (10:30 p.m.), 16 (11:15 p.m.), and 17 (3 p.m.) > CT

SIXTY FOUR AND NO MORE LIES “I can't get through the day without at least a shot of denial,” says Susan Freedman in this hilarious solo show. In this case, she's in denial about the chest pain she's having. A trip to the hospital to get it checked out provides a solid framework for Freedman's pithy and hilarious observations about getting older. (“How can he be a doctor at 12?” she marvels when she finally gets medical attention.) Freedman fearlessly steps into the quagmire that is health consciousness in today's world. “Carbs are the new cocaine,” she observes, and, “If a diet is successful, it makes you temporarily look like someone who doesn't have your problems.” Director Lucia Frangione keeps the pace crisp and the laughs folded into an engaging story. Charming. At Stage 1, Pacific Theatre, on September 16 (2:30 p.m.) and 17 (1:45 p.m.) > Kathleen Oliver

SWITCHBACK You won't see more skill on-stage anywhere at the Fringe: Jolene Bailie is a solo dancer at the top of her game. Of the four pieces on this program, Escape, a 1955 work by Anna Sokolow, held the most interest for me, with its melancholy, party-girl bravura. Joe Laughlin's walking thru myself is a giddy plunge into the fluid world beyond words. And Bailie's own SWITCHBACK evokes the brutally mechanical beauty of insects. In comparison, Marie-Josée Chartier's A Short Voyage looks sentimental. If only more theatre were this freely associative and formally adventuresome. At Stage 7, Performance Works, on September 14 (7:15 p.m.), 15 (9 p.m.), and 16 (2 p.m.) > CT

A LITTLE LIFE What a great concept: you get to be the studio audience for a talk show with a different special guest every night. In the show I saw, host Riel Hahn interviewed Vancouver actor Marjorie Malpass, with periodic interruptions from performers Jeff Gladstone, Tallulah Winkleman, and Tom Jones, who improvised scenes based on Malpass's memories of her (extraordinary) life. There was a family dinner, a walk through her first student apartment, and a glimpse of Malpass's future. Not every scene was meant to be funny, and the performers displayed impressive flexibility, even improvising a show tune. A remarkably intimate, playful, and affectionate celebration of one person's life. At BYOV A, Carousel Theatre, on September 14 (11 p.m.), 16 (2:45 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.), and 17 (2:45 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.) > KO

THE UNBREAKABLE POPSICLE STICK GANG Fringe veteran Jacques Lalonde is throwing a birthday party for his mother—“the best mom ever”—and this may well be his most openhearted and vulnerable work in 20 years of Fringing. In this loving tribute, Lalonde vividly recounts chapters of family lore, croons a song or two, and fires off some great one-liners: “It was not surprising that if my mom was going to give my sister a sign, it would be through The Maury Povich Show—either that or Murder, She Wrote.” Lalonde's enormous love for his mother fills the room; it's a balm to bask in. There's cake, too. At BYOV A, Carousel Theatre, on September 15 (8:30 p.m.), 16 (6 p.m.), and 17 (7:45 p.m.) > KO

DOWN THE DRAIN This delightful puppet show is all about transformation. A weary old man tries to kill himself in the bathtub but ends up in a magical undersea world where he encounters a treasure chest, scavenger crabs, and even an underwater cinema. The creators use an endless variety of techniques, including some gorgeous shadow puppetry, and are wickedly inventive in deploying everyday objects in imaginative ways: I'll bet you've never seen a regiment of shaving-cream cans perform a sea chantey. A treat for all ages. At Stage 2, Studio 16, on September 15 (5:15 p.m.) and 16 (7:30 p.m.) > KO

JESUS CHRIST: THE LOST YEARS In the gospel according to Monster Theatre, 13-year-old Jesus' dreams of becoming a carpenter are dashed when he learns that Joseph is not his real father. He leaves home to search for his roots and meets Judas, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, and, um, Elvis. Black-clad performers Ryan Gladstone and Katherine Sanders handle all the parts, sometimes trading off the same role mid-scene in a giddily paced, irreverent retelling of one of the world's best-known stories. Here's just one of the script's many twists on a Christian convention: “The answer isn't inside of you, it's out there somewhere.” At Stage 3, Arts Club Granville Island Stage, on September 15 (9 p.m.) and 16 (3:45 p.m.) > KO

CANADIAN CONTENT Urban Improv is back with more scathing comedy, in a program that mixes live and filmed sketches. These tack-sharp performers venture into all corners of popular culture, from speed daters to English crooner James Blunt. In one live sketch, a sales rep itemizes the charges for bonus cellphone features like “call ringing”, “call making”, and “call hearing”; in a filmed spoof of the TV show Holmes on Homes, the reno master critiques his daughter's dollhouse and his wife's sandwiches. The idea that there's something inherently hilarious about two men loving each other gets a bit tired here, but for the most part, the material is fresh and funny, and the pace rarely lags. At Stage 4, Waterfront Theatre, on September 15 (7:15 p.m.), 16 (1:45 p.m.), and 17 (11:15 p.m.) > KO

THEY WENT ANOTHER WAY Wry and affectionate insider humour pervades this piece about struggling actors. It's touching when Sophie, who keeps getting rejected at auditions, says, “I want to be wanted by somebody,” and a kick when she adds, “besides Visa.” The premise—that Sophie and her pal Scarlet are preparing a Web cast as a way to get jobs—doesn't make sense, though. And Scarlet's clowning and Sophie's naturalism don't exist in the same world. Still, the show is funny and moving, and both Michelle Addison (Sophie) and Terri-Lyn Storey (Scarlet) deliver solid work. At Stage 3, Arts Club Granville Island Stage, on September 15 (7:15 p.m.) and 17 (12:15 p.m.) > CT

THE DIARY OF ADAM AND EVE This is a jewel-box production of the self-contained first act of the 1966 musical The Apple Tree. Damon Calderwood (Adam) and Shawna Parry (Eve) sing the tricky score sweetly and perfectly evoke the wry innocence of the piece. Leon Willy is suavely stellar as the snake. But there's a catch: like so many supposedly hip entertainments from the '60s, the script is sexist. Eve is an emotionally demanding motor mouth who domesticates Adam and forces him to mow the lawn. Screw that. At BYOV A, Carousel Theatre, on September 14 (7:45 p.m.), 15 (7 p.m.), 16 (4:30 p.m.), and 17 (4:30 p.m.) > CT

DRAMA QUEEN Champagne, chocolate, and cunnilingus are Alex Dallas's passions, but, as this autobiographical outing shows, she's also a dab hand at chat. And chat is pretty much all we get as, over the course of an hour, Dallas reminisces about her days at an English public school, her failed career in sales, and her Shakespearean debut (on a trampoline, at 43). It's all oddly low-key—perhaps because the thread that ties everything together is the recent death of her father. Nonetheless, if you're lonely and just want someone to talk to you, a date with this Drama Queen might be $10 well spent. At Stage 3, Arts Club Granville Island Stage, on September 16 (5:30 p.m.) and 17 (4:15 p.m.) > ALEXANDER VARTY

STRIPES: THE MYSTERY CIRCUS Polly Hymnia, named for the Greek muse of song, is auditioning for all the parts in a circus. The roles are often metaphorical: the high-wire act is performed by a crack-addicted sex-trade worker, and the escape artist recounts several bad relationships from which she's extricated herself. Sarah Hayward is a confident performer and clever wordsmith, and there's a lot of intelligence crammed into her script. But it's peppered with slogans whose relationship to the story is not always clear. The same is true of Hayward's pleasant, if sometimes overlong, songs. At Stage 7, Performance Works, on September 15 (5:30 p.m.) and 16 (9 p.m.) > KO

DANCINGMONKEYBOY! Paul Thorne's Vancouver Fringe debut was hardly a smash, but that wasn't entirely his fault. The simian-browed Brit is the kind of quicksilver comedian who feeds off audience interaction, but at 11 p.m. on opening night, he was unable to strike many sparks off a bunch of bland Canadians who were up way past their bedtime. Thorne's banter went nowhere—except when he located a couple of Irish grad students who, unlike the locals, were willing to play along with his smart brand of semi-improvisational and occasionally quite poignant humour. If you want to dance with this singing ape, make sure you're up for monkeyshines. At Stage 1, Pacific Theatre, on September 15 (7:45 p.m.) and 16 (4 p.m.) > AV

JEM ROLLS OFF THE TONGUE Performance poet Jem Rolls has written the shortest horror story ever told, and although it's only two words long, it is truly frightening: “Student dentist.” Alas, brevity is the exception rather than the rule for this voluble Scot, whose real art form is the rant. Fast-paced workouts like “Wrong Direction Man” and “A Cool and Trendy Mum Is Rubbish” would be a treat at a poetry slam, but over the course of an hour, Rolls's herky-jerky delivery grows tiring, and his sentimental finale is both out of character and a letdown. At Stage 3, Arts Club Granville Island Stage, on September 16 (7:15 p.m.) and 17 (6 p.m.) > AV

PEEPSHOW Tons of plays at Fringe festivals tease audiences with promises of sex; PeepShow puts out. Not that creator-performers Ian Mozdzen and Mia van Leeuwen hump or anything, but they do dare to get naked in a way that feels genuinely vulnerable—mostly because it's also smart. They adopt clown characters named Hugo and Sabina and play out sexual fantasies, including one in which Hugo becomes a cross-dressing male geisha and Sabina is the geisha's drag-king client. Clowning, film sequences, and tightly choreographed movement make for a stylish presentation, though it feels like the avant-garde of 20 years ago. Mozdzen's work is crisp but he's too loud and tries too hard, while van Leeuwen is more relaxed but less imaginative. Still, this cabaret more or less works, and the underlying notion—that there's a point beyond which erotic fantasy becomes narcissistic and lonely—is valuable. At Stage 2, Studio 16, on September 14 (10:30 p.m.), 16 (9:15 p.m.), and 17 (7 p.m.) > CT

MOXIE Inspired by the dreaded star-rated review system some (lesser) publications use, Jason Rothery has written a script in which prisoners are given ratings based not on the opinions of their fellow prisoners but on the meaningless judgments of faceless wardens. When Pill gets two stars, he knows that he will be mulched and returned to his fellow inmates as food. The premise is outrageous enough to be interesting, there are some good gags—Pill and his cellmate Curt mourn the execution of the guy who invented the jail's Blow Job Day—and the actors (Daniel Martin, Dave Mott, and Darren Boquist) are all fine performers. I wonder why Rothery hasn't considered self-respect as a way to ameliorate external judgment, however. And there's a huge plot hole: Curt tells Pill he has an escape plan, but Pill ignores this lifeline—apparently so that he and Curt can philosophize. At Stage 4, Waterfront Theatre, on September 16 (7 p.m.) and 17 (5 p.m.) > CT

ZOMBIES Zombies is all concept and no story. It's about a guy who suddenly discovers that he can see individuals' entire lives when he looks into their eyes on the bus. But the only conflict is that he's late for work, and other devices—including an interwoven dream sequence—fail to create momentum. The mind reading gets repetitive and is mostly condescending. But there's tight physical performance from Stewart Matthews, who also wrote the piece. At Stage 6, Playwrights Theatre Centre, on September 14 (8:15 p.m.), 15 (11 p.m.), and 16 (1:30 p.m.) > CT

THE EXCURSIONISTS England has sunk! Lord Necksycracksy wants to kill himself, but Professor Goggins has invented an underwater train, the Neptunia Express, and he's sure it will take them to a place where they can find a reason to live. Christopher Bange and Jonah Von Spreecken have a field day with their characters' stuffy English accents and Victorian mannerisms, and there are some fun moments of physical comedy, like a wrestling match with a giant squid. But the show never rises to the level of Monty Python–esque absurdity that its creators seem to be aspiring to, and the jokes become repetitive and tired. At Stage 6, Playwrights Theatre Centre, on September 14 (10 p.m.) and 17 (11 p.m.) > KO

APHRODITE'S TURN In Alison Williams's solo show, a circus performer, the Fat Lady, recounts her dreams to a lover who may or may not be imaginary. There's some lovely, evocative writing, with vivid descriptions of various circus freaks, including the boss, Lenny: “He looked like he wanted to kick me. That's a funny look for someone with no legs.” But as the references to other people pile up, our grasp on the central story gets weaker. Williams works hard, but the result is confusion. At Stage 4, Waterfront Theatre, on September 16 (5:30 p.m.) and 17 (1:30 p.m.) > KO

THE HISTORY OF THE PORTUGUESE IN 20 MINUTES This presentation is like a minimally imaginative school project. It really is just a bunch of hastily recited facts about Portugal. At Stage 5, BBQ Pit, on September 14 (7:40 p.m.), 15 (5:40 p.m.), 16 (6:20 p.m.), and 17 (5 p.m.) > CT

87% TRUE: THE LIES THAT BIND There's a lot of talk in this putative comedy about twins who are told that the family estate will go to whichever one of them is not adopted. Sweet nothing happens, though. The inevitable resolution, which is obvious from the beginning, is ignored too long, and the idea that an adopted child isn't really part of the family is just stupid. At Stage 4, Waterfront Theatre, on September 16 (3:30 p.m.) > CT

ON THE WAY DOWN Fifteen-year-old writer-director Carter West tackles a weighty subject here—the demise of United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001—and he wisely narrows his focus to the experience of two passengers on the plane. The script alternates between their separate phone conversations to people on the ground. The show's power comes from its evocation of the terror of those onboard, but the dramatic arc is flattened by the text's tendency to repeat itself as we watch each man come to an identical series of realizations. Sean Cummings and Iain Stewart do strong work, but Audrey Abraham, as one of the women on the ground, is completely inaudible in an already noisy venue. At Stage 5, BBQ Pit, on September 14 (8:20 p.m.), 15 (9 p.m.), 16 (9:40 p.m.), and 17 (8:20 p.m.) > KO

MARRIED MAN Rod McDonald's humour is straight out of the pages of Reader's Digest. And gee, do we mean straight! The Regina raconteur's reductive view of gender is based on the notion that all men are sports-watching, beer-drinking chuckle heads and that all women—though easily bribed with flowers and the occasional kind word—are genetically superior to their chromosome-deprived partners. We concede the latter point but quickly became bored with McDonald's incessant attempts to enlist his brothers in the audience as comrades—baffled, witless comrades—in the battle of the sexes. At BYOV G, Havana, on September 14 (5:15 p.m.), 15 (7:30 p.m.), and 16 (7 p.m.) > AV