Reviews 2006
Reviews 2006
✭✭✭✭✩
written and directed by Jem Rolls,
Big Word Performance Poetry, Toronto Fringe Festival, Glen Morris Studio Theatre, Toronto
July 5-15, 2006
The Fringe’s favourite Scottish bard is back and is as brilliant as ever. Performance poetry could hardly have a better advocate than Jem Rolls whose love of language infuses everything he says whether the poems themselves of the hilarious anecdotes in between. Who else could make a poem about queuing funny, angry and smart all at once? His poem composed solely of spoonerisms is a tour de force of imagination and delivery. His first and last poems about poetry itself and the nature of an audience are playful and profound. If you somehow have missed Jem Rolls before, be sure to see him this time.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2006-07-13.
Photo: Jem Rolls. ©Simon Law.
2006-07-13
Jem Rolls Off the Tongue