Results tagged “alistairmacleod”

"He's the bad boy of the Canadian art scene," said Nino Ricci, raising an (ample) eyebrow at Iain Baxter&. As the UTAC crowd finished chewing on Ricci's words of introduction, the man with the ampersand-emblazoned cap took his place at the podium.

For every prestigious award shows there will be people who complain that the prize is rigged. The Gillers, Canada's most prestigious literary award, is no stranger to this. In its 13 year history the prize has been criticized for its bias towards larger publishers, to Ontario authors and any number of other shortcomings.

Ok, so the city is in the grip of full-blown festival mania. Red carpets, Gala screenings, and celebrity sightings are all great, but so are poetry readings, right? Right? Anyone???

Torontoist has heard that end of year lists are generally tedious and irrelevant. Torontoist acknowledges the point. But Torontoist also only burst on the scene a couple of months ago and would like to take this moment to salute nine plays we liked in 2004. They weren’t necessarily the best plays, per se, but we liked them is all.

The reviews haven’t been very kind to the show about the misfortunate MacDonald clan of Cape Breton. "No great truth or inspiration" went the headline in The Globe and Mail, which pretty much sums up the overall critical reaction. This Torontoist theatregoer (TTT), however, thinks that it’s the best play to grace a Toronto stage so far this season, full of joyous soaring musical moments and soul-scritch-scratching quiet ones. R.H. Thompson is particularly fine as Alexander MacDonald, the play’s narrator-dentist. There’s also not one, but two fabulous performances by an actor named Jody Richardson as Alexander’s grandfather and California cousin. If the Torontoist were on the Dora jury, we’d be pushing for a nomination for this Richardson fellah who is making his Tarragon debut.