Fringe Review: Escape from Victoria

Dates: Aug 27 – Aug 31, 2025

Location: Metro Studio (Fringe Venue 1)

Artist / Company: Tamlynn Bryson & Rod Peter Jr. (Victoria, BC)

Duration: 60 minutes

Rating: Ages 16+

Genre: Comedy

"It's 1997, the future."

Escape from Victoria is a delightful spoof of action movie tropes, riffing on Escape from LA and Escape from New York with full-on parody energy. The play is awash in serious meta hijinks—there’s shadow puppets, an actual puppet, cheeky stunt callbacks, and a gleeful embrace of DIY spectacle. It’s a Fringe‑core joyride: irreverent, intentionally messy, and absolutely hilarious. Not a bit surprised it sold out. Metro Theatre’s packed house only made the chaos funnier.

And that sex scene 😂🤣💀

Rating

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

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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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