All’s Faire

Imagine the cheesiest, cheapest Renaissance Faire possible.  Imagine the weird, driven employees of said Fair.  Imagine the Faire’s in danger of shutting down, and what those employees would do to keep “their” Faire going.

That’s the premise of All’s Faire, a serial comedy showing on blip.tv.  I stumbled across this on my Roku a few months ago, and was hooked by, of all things, the acting.

This show is full of impressive comedic performances. I’d love to know where they found these actors. There’s the over-the-hill owner and king of the fair, the over-eager minstrels (who are composing a “Medieval Rock Opera”), a wide-eyed “wench,” a vain knight, a “Celtic warrior” absolutely dedicated to realism (he’s vowed not to break character until the end of the season), and the long-suffering manager.  And that’s only about half of the cast.

Sure, there’s no Laurence Olivier here, but this is a shoestring-budgeted comedy, and it works. Each episode advances the plot–if slightly–and clocks in at under ten minutes long.

Better, because there’s an actual story, the show doesn’t have to fall back on one actor’s comedic skills.  They bring what they have to each scene and problem.