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written and directed by Chris Gibbs

Chris Gibbs, Next Stage Festival, Factory Theatre Mainspace, Toronto

January 7-17, 2010

Taking a break from fiction, Chris Gibbs’s performs a welcome reprise of his 2009 Fringe Hit about the birth of his son.  Gibbs is a master of the humour of self-consciousness, using digressions within digressions, asides within asides, to highlight his supposedly numerous failings while they simultaneously reveal his abundant wit.  Here Gibbs frets about the possible negative influence a socially awkward, dog-fearing ex-street performer like himself may have upon the developing psyche of his son.  In this he contrasts completely with the portentous Jor-El, who launches the infant Superman into space in the 1978 movie Gibbs so hilariously mimics.  Gibbs is one of our great comics.  If you missed him last July, be sure to see him now.  

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2010-01-08.

Photo: Chris Gibbs and Gibbs, Jr.