Fringe Review: I AM OK

Dates: Aug 21 – Aug 31, 2025

Location: Baumann Centre (Fringe Venue 3)

Artist / Company: Amit Solanki (Victoria, BC)

Duration: 59 minutes

Rating: Ages 14+

Genre: Comedy, Storytelling

This is an unstarred review because we caught the 9:00 p.m. show and of course that is far too late for the average Victoria Fringer. There were fewer than ten people in the audience, and with that small of a crowd, any standup comedian is facing an uphill battle.

That being said, Amit got consistent laughs and engaged well with the small audience. The show is largely standup interwoven with stories about Amit's fifteen years in Canada after moving to Montreal from India to study aerospace engineering. He pokes fun at himself as well as at the differences between his two worlds as he moves across the country and ends up becoming a yoga teacher.

We enjoyed the show, but as noted, the laughs would have been easier with a larger crowd. Amit has some funny stories to share and is definitely endearing, though some of his punchlines were tentative and perhaps still in development.

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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.

#YYJFringe #YYJArts