The Martlet

To properly review any sort of revue, I feel I must open with “Laydeeeeees and gentlemen! I give you ... 500 words on burlesque and body humour!” When the show in question contains a cast of carnies, this hawking sort of intro is almost a given. But it's impossible for me to phonetically emulate the phlegmy, Chewbacca-esque vowels of Ian Ferguson, the creator, announcer and director of the live, improvised soap opera Sin City: Carnies. The show runs nearly every Tuesday from Oct. 25 to April 17 at the Victoria Event Centre and marks the second season of Ferguson's serial soap concept. So perhaps I'll leave the proud announcements to the practiced pros.

The pros in Sin City are hardly A-listers in the world of carnivals. In fact, at the Oct. 25 premiere, these carnies found they'd been abandoned by their employers, the Claresholm Brothers, in a small Saskatchewan town. They're the dregs of the sideshow talent pool — a snake lady, a celestial hypnotist, a trick shooter, a roustie, a mentalist and a faceless man. Sure, there's a red-faced farmer and a windbag of a doctor hanging about, but they seem to be the only fans of the financially insolvent freaks. It doesn't help that the Great Depression is making its tough impression on folks everywhere.

Hope seems to come in the form of Miss Rosie Bitts, Victoria's burlesque darling and the special guest in Sin City's live pilot episode. Will she perform a scintillating strip tease? Yes. Will she join the abandoned carnies and help them form a self-sufficient troupe? Well, no, but it true soap opera style, she'll rile her ex-husband, who just happens to be The Mentalist! (Yes, you can gasp.)

Other show highlights included the trick rider, Tallulah (played by a surly Christina Patterson), riding piggyback on the farmer-turned-shill (Wes Borg) after discovering the Claresholm Brothers have absconded with her beloved horse, Lightning. The Snake Lady (Kristen Van Ritzen) advised Tallulah that “Sometimes you've got no horse to get back up on, so you've just got to air out your scanties and think of something else.” Best of all, the carnies tried to rally their spirits by singing “I'll Fly Away,” while the shill screamed caterwauling harmony, scarred by his glimpse of the faceless man's visage.

The one-liners are zingers, the carnies are zany, and the improvised musical accompaniment lends a period-appropriate zeitgeist to the piece. I advise you to catch the second episode of Sin City: Carnies at the Victoria Event Centre on Nov. 1. Judging from the crowd that turned up for the premiere, I'd arrive earlier than the 8 p.m. start and purchase tickets in advance from ticketrocket.org. Even if you missed the premiere, Ferguson's booming summary of the show to date will get you on track and feeling as if you're under a big top, ready for anything.