May 2014

This review covers two separate dinners at this restaurant.  The first visit was before heading up to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre to see an opera. I thought the calamari appetiser was one of the best dishes of this kind I have tasted, and when another friend came into town for a visit, I suggested we see if a repeat would be as good.  

After a hard day of training, the thought of my usual "nutritionally correct" supper of baked salmon and green salad was not really appealing, and instead we decided to head up to the local restaurant rows on Hamilton and Mainland Streets and pick somewhere for dinner.

Vancouver, B.C. One of the things I love about my job as a theatre reviewer is the opportunity to see off-mainstream shows by small independent theatre companies. It is also often an opportunity to learn about small funky theatre spaces which these independent companies find to host their productions. And that's how on a rainy Vancouver night I found myself driving round the vicinity of Main and Québec Streets, trying to find a street parking space reasonably close to The Shop Theatre, which I discovered is in the old production space of the now sadly defunct Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company.

Vancouver, BC: It was a packed house last night for the closing performance of Nicolas Billon’s Iceland at Studio 16, and deservedly so. Iceland is a gem of a theatrical piece and it was sensitively directed and beautifully performed by Kathy Duborg and her cast of three. Iceland is one of three plays that make up the trilogy published as “Fault Lines” that won Billon the 2013 Governor  General’s Literary Award for Drama. The other two plays are Greenland and Faroe Islands.