Toronto – It’s probably no small thing to win the “Just For Laughs Best Comedy Award” at the Montreal Fringe, which improv troupe Uncalled For’s Hypnogogic Logic did last year. I mean, Just for Laughs does the Just for Laughs festival. And those rarely funny TV standup shows. And Just For Laughs Gags, which is actually not very funny at…hmm.
Anyway, Uncalled For are very funny indeed, and Hypnogogic Logic proves it in a series of oddball sketches from inside somebody’s not-quite-asleep mind. This is hypnogogia, the state of mind you enter in when you’re about to fall asleep, and it’s a setup that gives Uncalled For the excuse to fire off a series of truly bizarre sketches.
Not every sketch is howlingly funny, but Uncalled For rolls between them effortlessly with the polish of a skilled, seasoned troupe. The best are a post-apocalyptic cooking show where the contestants have to use ingredients like cockroaches and guano or be banished to the radioactive mutant zone, a street preacher who claims that all life’s answers can be found in the dictionary, and the hard-boiled officers of the “Falling Wish Foundation,” who refuse wishes for money and love but grant a wish to bring Freddie Mercury back to life.
It’s great sketch comedy and well worth a look. You might want to try and get advance tickets; their first show was a near sellout and they’re getting great reviews.
Uncalled For presents: Hypnogogic Logic plays at Venue 3. Check your Fringe program or the online play listings for showtimes.