Flight of the Ballooncaster: The Hottest Air at the 2022 Toronto Fringe (Balloon-Based Productions)

NOTE: This is not a review. I’m in a Fringe show (The Boy Who Cried), so I don’t feel super comfortable doing critical evaluations of people’s work. Instead, my 2022 Fringe writing is more in the vein of “creative reflection”. The goal is to get conversations going about people’s shows, not deem them good or bad.

Paul Michaels (Devon Hyland) and Jerry Koal (Connor Thompson) are veteran sportscasters destined to be inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Jerry has mastered the art of reading ad copy, but, after thirty years, he’s decided to retire. And then he goes missing. Flight of the Ballooncaster follows Paul’s quest to find him.

Ambitiously, the show is a two-hander — Second City alumni Hyland and Thompson play 10+ characters throughout the piece including birds, detectives who speak in Early Modern English, and feral-cat-riding advertising executives. Sometimes they even play multiple characters in the same scene.

Plus, although it’s listed in the Comedy section of the Fringe program, Flight of the Ballooncaster is a musical. Throughout, Hyland and Koal athletically belt out story-essential tunes that straddle rap, showtune, techno, and opera.

What’s remarkable about this show, though, is that it is so unmoored from our present moment. Its comedy comes from its language and its mixing of genres, not specific references. I get the sense it could have been produced twenty years ago, and could be produced twenty years from now. Brennan Asbridge’s bare-bones production helps support this timelessness — with only two chairs on stage, we could be anywhere at any time.

I wish this show a long, long life. First step? Go see it.

The Toronto Fringe Festival runs from July 6-July 17. Flight of the Ballooncaster is playing at the Factory Studio; click here for tickets. Click here to return to my Fringe Masterpost.