So imagine this scene, you've amassed a very decent crowd with seven hours of flyering on the streets of Saskatoon.

You're waiting backstage eager to knock their socks off.

Your intro music comes (even if the tech is a moron who keeps fucking it up even with repeated instruction.)

You waltz on ready to charm the pants of the Tooners when.......no lights. Nothing, nada, zip, ix-nay on the ights-nay, kaput.

Said technician starts making frantic manoeuvres at the back of the stage as he tries to fix the problem but.............nothing.

Then like a beacon to a lost sailor on a shipwrecked plank the FOH lady shines a torch at me from the back of the room. Then eager beavers (we are in Canada) in the audience join in and all of a sudden I'm bathed slightly in torchlight so what the hell, I start my show.

I do five minutes of material like this before the tech gets the board back up and running. I thank him for that but not for the ensuing mistakes in the show making me look silly.

However it'll be a night I remember for quite some time!

OH and here's another fab review :)

Hot Pink Bits
Venue 7 – The Conservatory
Hilarious! Hilarious! Hilarious! Some audience members were laughing so hard that they were in tears. A solid show from Kiwi performer Penny Ashton, aka “Mistress Hot Bits”. She takes us along, through the “ins and outs” of the global sex trade in a funny, well-rounded way. From porn to prostitution, from S&M to furries, she talks about it all.

While not glossing over the obvious negative impacts of the sex trade, she still manages to present it all in an upbeat beat fashion, deliver laugh after laugh. The show is very smart and full of interesting facts and statistics about the sex trade. Did you know that it was only one year after the first film was released that the first porno film was released? … Well, you would know this and much more if you saw this show. Lots of games, songs, audience participation, and free stuff. A true gem, this show may certainly be the best comedy at the Fringe this year.

- Cindy Murdoch UMFM