Laura Flynn’s one-woman
show charms again

Get Your Shuffle On improved the second time around

By Byron Toben

Laura Flynn’s one woman show, Get Your Shuffle On won a number of accolades when first performed at the 2016 Fringe.

The busy Ms Flynn found time to tighten the show up a bit and the recent short remount at the Mainline Theatre’s Mini-Main pocket size second room bore witness to the dozens of minute tweaks that made it even more audience friendly, as bro Frank Sinatra sang, “the second time around”.

Ms Flynn… relates growing up and fantasizing about being courted by Patrick Swayze of Dirty Dancing fame. Somehow, a stay in France, rubber ducks, flashlights and origami blend into the mix.

As before, the show blends some autobiographical bits with audience participation and uses a deck of playing cards to good avail.

Ms Flynn, who grew up in tiny Dundalk, Ireland, as a shy single child, introduces her protective grandmother into the narrative to balance her flamboyant character, Rita, as she relates growing up and fantasizing about being courted by Patrick Swayze of Dirty Dancing fame. Somehow, a stay in France, rubber ducks, flashlights and origami blend into the mix.

Are you a diamond, club, heart or spade? Or perhaps a rare joker?

The pack is put to good use for the second time since Fringe icon TJ Dawes’s 52 pickup.

Get Your Shuffle On ran at the Mainline Theatre from February 16 to 18.

For future shows, see Laura-Flynn.com

Images: Rachel Côté

Read also: Older Than Ireland’s perky centenarians

Byron Toben is the immediate past-president of the Montreal Press Club.