Fringe Review: Candy Roberts is Larry

Dates: Aug 26, 2025 - Aug 31, 2025

Location: Metro Studio (Fringe Venue 1)

Created: Candy Roberts (Vancouver, BC)

Duration: 60 mins

Rating: Ages 18+

Genre: Comedy, Physical Theatre

Candy Roberts is Larry is an unstructured comedy routine that relies on props, gags, and variety-style antics. Larry is a dad-rock redneck—a lampoon of Candy's experiences with small-town men from Campbell River.

Comedy is subjective. Here's some proof.

When we saw Candy Roberts perform a few jokes as Larry at the Fringe Preview, we concluded right away that this show wasn't our thing. The character just wasn't landing for us.

But as the Fringe week progressed, we started hearing recommendations for this show. First came from our billets. Next was a glowing commendation from Jimmy Hogg and Alex Dallas (Evie and Alfie). Juice the Trauma Clown from the Beth and Josie show also gave Larry a shoutout. In the past, we have absolutely misjudged a performer based on the preview, so we decided we were wrong and bought tickets.

We weren't wrong. After a few chuckles in Roberts' high energy opening sequence, we sat in silence for the rest of the hour. So did the two friends who joined us. So did most of the people in the rows nearest us. But some people in the audience were laughing consistently. It seemed Larry's shtick was working for about a quarter of the attendees.

Highlights

• Fantastic lighting cues

• The opening number was fun

• Pre-show audience banter was engaging

Workshop notes

There's not much we can say about the comedy. As noted, it just wasn't our thing. The redneck dude parody felt too obvious. These are jokes we've heard before, and Roberts repeats many of them throughout the show. As such, Larry didn't feel like an authentic lampoon of actual redneck misogyny. One thing that could have made the show better for us was if it had more structure to it, like if Larry had a story to tell rather than just standing around and hitting the same few notes over and over.

Rating

★★ (an extra star for those in the crowd who were enjoying it)

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The Victoria Fringe Festival, presented by Intrepid Theatre since 1986, has become a cornerstone of the city’s arts scene, known for its unjuried, anything-goes approach to performance. For Carmunist and Septimus, Fringe is the highlight of the year. We’ve been involved as volunteers for more than a decade, and more recently, we’ve opened our home to performers as billets. Reviewing Fringe shows is something we’ve talked about for some time, and now we’re putting our experience as fiction editors and theatre stans to work, offering our thoughts and workshop notes for as many performances as we can attend.

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