Wanderlust

Rating:

Company: Martin Dockery

Genre: Storytelling

Venue: 10 - Planetarium Auditorium

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(Reviewed at the 2009 Toronto Fringe Festival)

In the sea of one-person shows at the festival, you're not likely to find many storytellers better than Martin Dockery.

The New York-based performer is one of those guys who could probably make a grocery list sound fascinating. Luckily, the story he's got here is a bit better than that.

• Winnipeg Fringe 2017: read our reviews

This is Dockery's auto-biographical tale of his sojourn in West Africainspired by one of those "oh-my-God-my-temp-job-has-become-my-real-life" crises Gen X'ers are drawn to in their 30s.

But this isn't a "here's a list of all the nifty places I went"travelogues. Rather, Dockery's story is really about looking for one's place in the worldand I'm probably not giving too much away to say that the lessons Dockery learns about life and love are more resonant than what he learns about geography.

His story is propelled by his maniacally energetic storytelling style, which makes everything from his favourite pen to a nasty bout of "intestinal distress" downright hilarious. He thankfully slows down for the monologue's more profound moments, but for the most part, it's a wildtrip.

Grab tickets for this one earlythe performance I saw was quickly sold out. And forgood reason.